12 MILF rebels killed in clash

COTABATO, Philippines — At least 12 Muslim separatist guerrillas have been killed and three soldiers wounded in fresh fighting in the South, the military said yesterday.

About 50 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked the main headquarters of the Army’s 75th Infantry Battalion near the town of Tugaig with rocket- propelled grenades, injuring three soldiers and triggering a gunbattle that lasted for several hours, Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga said.

Troops fired rounds of mortar into enemy positions, forcing the rebels to flee and leave behind the bodies of 12 guerrillas, Senga said.

The battalion headquarters sits inside a sprawling compound bordering several towns in Maguindanao that had once been the MILF’s main command post, he said.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu admitted the rebels initiated the attack as part of its plan to recover rebel-held areas that had fallen to military hands. He denied however that the rebels suffered any casualties.

In Pikit, North Cotabato, MILF rebels also plundered two villages yesterday killing a 16-year-old Muslim villager and wounding three other minors.

Col. Carduzo Luna, commander of the Army’s 602nd Brigade, identified the slain civilian as Ismael Karim, who died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds when the rebels surrounded their village and opened fire with assault rifles and B-40 anti-tank rockets.

Karim’s three siblings — Hashim, 15; Nasser, 13, and four-year-old Nurhamin — who were wounded in the shooting frenzy, were rushed to hospital for treatment.

Luna said the rebels just showed up in Barangay Bualan and, without warning, fired at houses with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades and immediately retreated to a nearby marshland after sensing that responding soldiers and militiamen were closing in.

The rebel attack came only three days after three houses of Muslim residents known to be supportive of the police and military’s pacification campaign in barangays Delawangen and Nalapaan were burned down by the rebels reportedly for refusing to shell out "protection money" to a local group of MILF rebels identified with its chieftain, Hashim Salamat. – AFP, John Unson, Jaime Laude