2,000 troopers form Zambo security belt

ZAMBOANGA CITY — At least 2,000 soldiers were deployed to form a security belt around this city yesterday as armed loyalists of jailed rebel leader Nur Misuari threatened to stage attacks anew if the military does not allow them to regroup with their comrades.

Armed Forces Southern Command (Southcom) chief Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu deployed the government troopers as the bodies of four men, believed to be Misuari loyalists, were found in a ravine in a remote sitio in Barangay San Roque here.

Another body was recovered at the Girl Scouts complex within Barangay Cabatangan, the site of intense fighting since Tuesday.

All the bodies were blindfolded, gagged and bore signs of severe beatings, indicating that they may have been executed by enraged civilians, authorities said.

But residents denied knowledge of the supposed liquidations and said the bodies were only dumped in their areas.

The slain Misuari stragglers are believed to be among the men who occupied the Cabatangan complex but were left behind when their colleagues fled a military air strike and ground assault.

Julhambri Misuari, the rebel leader’s nephew and chief of the loyalists, threatened that his group would attack the city anew if the military does not allow such stragglers to rejoin the main group.

But Cimatu belittled the threat and ordered his men to surround the loyalists’ camp in Barangay Panubigan, where the rebels were brought after they released the 113 civilians they took as hostages and used as human shields on Tuesday.

"We cannot be intimated," Cimatu said as three battalions were deployed around the city and the Panubigan camp.

"We have deployed forces around that camp. They are there to contain them and they will be there until Gov. (Isnaji) Alvarez talks with them," Cimatu said.

Alvarez, acting governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), was among the officials who negotiated for the hostages’ release and was supposed to collect the loyalists’ high-powered firearms.

But local officials doubted whether Alvarez would be able to collect the firearms, especially after authorities continued to find the bodies of Misuari loyalists.

The renegades in the Panubigan camp were among those who occupied the sprawling Cabatangan complex which, he said, the elder Misuari turned into a "seat of terrorism."

Cimatu said troopers have uncovered evidence from the complex that indicates Misuari may have been planning terrorist attacks aside from the Nov. 19 armed assault on military detachments in Sulu.

Misuari supposedly masterminded the attacks in an effort to disrupt the ARMM elections — which were successfully held last Monday — that would pick his successor as ARMM governor.

Misuari later fled his base in Sulu after the military crushed his rebellion but his loyalists refused to vacate the hilltop Cabatangan complex, which overlooks the city’s airport.

Malaysian authorities, however, captured Misuari on Sempiras island and have been holding him in an undisclosed location since Nov. 24 for illegal entry.

On Tuesday, the military launched air strikes and ground assaults on Cabatangan complex to flush out some 200 Misuari followers, who later seized the 113 hostages, many of them women and children, in order to get safe passage from the city.

"It is a sanctuary... a factory for explosives. This is the handiwork of terrorists," Cimatu said, after his troops discovered 600 blasting caps, pipe bombs as long as 10 meters long, rocket-propelled grenades as well anti-aircraft, bazooka and mortar ammunition.

"These are really terrorist explosives powerful enough to inflict damage to lives and properties and they are by the hundreds, about 120," the Southcom chief said.

Cimatu made the remarks as military intelligence officers revealed that several Misuari loyalists in Central Mindanao have allied themselves with the notorious Pentagon kidnap gang that is still holding Italian priest Guiseppe Pierantoni.

An Army intelligence officer, who asked not to be identified, said two sub-leaders of Misuari loyalist groups in Maguindanao held a meeting with Pentagon gang leader Tahir Alonto and discussed plans to expand their kidnapping activities in the Zamboanga peninsula.

"We received feedback that the meeting took place near a marshy area in the second district of Maguindanao," the officer said in Cotabato City.

A local official in North Cotabato also confirmed that about a dozen armed men identified with Misuari, mostly casual employees of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), were seen roaming with Pentagon Gang members in the province.

The Pentagon Gang is believed to consist of former members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which Misuari organized in the 1970s for a separatist rebellion.

Misuari’s colleagues in the MNLF, however, have been disillusioned by Misuari’s leadership especially after he supposedly failed to fulfill his promises of development for Mindanao despite five years as ARMM governor.

Misuari’s colleagues ousted him as chairman and replaced him with the Council of 15, consisting of influential MNLF commanders.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, a member of the Council, said they will investigate reports that MNLF units are joining the Pentagon gang.

"Whoever among our renegade brothers will join any kidnapping syndicate will become an enemy of the MNLF forever and will never be accepted by the MNLF if they intend to return to its fold," Sema said. - With reports from John Unson, Paolo Romero, Perseus Echeminada