Troops take back villages from rebels

Over 100 MNLF fighters killed or captured

ZAMBOANGA CITY , Philippines  â€“ Troops yesterday took back portions of two villages from rebels as government forces cut off escape routes of the armed men belonging to the Nur Misuari faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to end a week-long standoff that has left more than 60 people dead in this city, officials said.

“We are gaining ground. We’ve taken back some of the areas from them. We are still moving forward,” Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, public affairs chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said.

As troops moved through barangay Sta. Barbara, the extent of the damage from seven days of fighting came into full view.

Sporadic clashes continued as soldiers moved to clear MNLF gunmen from coastal neighborhoods after a ceasefire plan collapsed, with thousands more residents fleeing to safety.

Military officials said 53 rebels have been killed in Barangay Sta. Barbara, while 55 guerrillas have been captured.

Zagala said that so far six soldiers, one policeman and six civilians have been killed, while 59 troops were wounded in the various encounters in the city.

In Sta. Barbara, buildings were reduced to smoldering heaps or pockmarked with bullet holes, an AFP reporter said.

Soldiers recovered the bodies of two slain gunmen still clinging to their rifles, and the fleeing rebels left behind several unexploded warheads for use in rocket-propelled grenades.

In the distance, black smoke billowed from another area that had just gone up in flames.

And in a nearby district, a group of soldiers could be seen crouched on the street as sniper fire whizzed just above their heads, television footage showed.

“We are continuing to press forward with our calibrated military response,” Zagala told AFP. “Fighting is continuing as we speak. They continue to resist and conduct offensive actions against us.”

At least 11 rebels, including snipers, were captured while trying to escape.

Three hostages, including a doctor and a pastor who were among the hostages held as human shields, were rescued yesterday morning in barangay Sta. Catalina.

Police said four of the 11 captured guerrillas were found inside the drainage system.

Barangay councilor Jimmy Villaflores said the suspects slipped through the drainage along Martha Drive before they were spotted in the drainage outlet near the barangay hall.

“They were slipping through the drainage system to escape the military operation,” Villaflores said.

The village official and village watchmen helping in the area believed that there were still a number of the rebels stuck in the drainage system trying to flee.

The six other suspects were intercepted at the Lustre section as the troops, backed by armored personnel carriers, rescued the three hostages.

Villagers captured another rebel trying to escape through the mangroves.

All the captured suspects were carrying MNLF identification cards. They were brought to the police headquarters.

Meanwhile, another big fire broke out in sitio Lustre near the Zamboanga City Medical Center, razing several houses shortly before 9 a.m. yesterday.

The latest fire, which was the seventh blaze since the standoff, was believed set by the rebels to slow down operations of government forces.

Rebel fire prevented local firefighters and fire trucks from getting near the burning houses that were razed to the ground.

Heavily armed MNLF forces entered the port city’s coastal neighborhoods last Monday and took dozens of hostages in a bid to scuttle peace talks between another militant group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the government aimed at ending a decades-long rebellion in the south.

Zagala said the fighting was now concentrated in two coastal villages, while other areas have been secured.

Day and night operations by at least 3,000 elite government troops have assaulted rebel positions.

Airports and seaports remained closed Sunday in a crisis that has paralyzed the city of one million, seen entire neighborhoods razed to the ground, and forced tens of thousands to flee.

Police on Saturday estimated that the gunmen were now holding as few as seven civilian hostages, compared to more than 100 a day earlier, with many either escaping or were released.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said more than 69,000 people had fled to temporary shelters as of yesterday morning.

“The number swelled yesterday because thousands more evacuated from areas the rebels were likely to use as escape routes. We hope they will be able to go home in the coming week,” she said.

A ceasefire plan brokered by Vice President Jejomar Binay and MNLF leader

Nur Misuari was abandoned Saturday after the two sides failed to agree on terms.

The MNLF waged a 25-year guerrilla war for independence before signing a peace treaty in 1996 that granted limited self-rule to the south’s Muslim minority.

Misuari, who has accused the government of violating the terms of a 1996 treaty by negotiating a separate deal with MILF, had disappeared from public view shortly before the fighting began Monday.

The MILF is in the final stages of peace talks with the government and is expected to take over an expanded autonomous Muslim region in the south by 2016.

President Aquino said the peace talks with the MILF aimed to end decades of rebellion that had claimed over 150,000 lives in Mindanao.

“We continue to contain and we continue to constrict the movements of the armed men who are part of the Misuari faction,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said of the MNLF being pursued by soldiers in Mindanao.

In an interview over government-run radio station dzRB, Valte said the AFP had no choice but to continue its offensives against the rebels, as efforts to forge a ceasefire have repeatedly failed.

“They (AFP) have successfully contained them in those areas, and they are now trying to constrict their movements so that the space in which they are moving will become smaller and smaller,” Valte explained, justifying military operations.

At this point, when no ceasefire between the two parties had been reached, the issue of whether government will issue safe conduct passes to Misuari’s men in exchange for the release of remaining civilian hostages is out of the question.

“I think our answer to that is very clear. We have tried to talk to them. But it’s already day seven. In the first few days and in the succeeding days after that, we negotiated but nothing happened,” she said.

Military operations have to continue in affected barangays, and ensure the safety of the residents, with the end in view that there should be no more casualties even as sporadic clashes continue.

“The local crisis management committee has decided that following days of negotiations, there seemed to be no results in the talks,” she said.

President Aquino spent the weekend in Zamboanga City as he assessed the situation on the ground.

Valte refused to say, however, how long the commander-in-chief will stay in Mindanao, citing security reasons.

“The President is still in Zamboanga,” Valte said without elaborating.

Aquino flew to Zamboanga City last Friday to assess the security situation and boost the moral of the soldiers. With Delon Porcalla, Alexis Romero, AP