MILF scores Cotabato raid

COTABATO City — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front bewailed yesterday’s raid by soldiers on several houses, including that of the MILF’s ceasefire committee chairman, in a village here where suspected Pentagon kidnappers are holding out.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF’s vice chair for political affairs, said they have urged the government’s peace panel, led by Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza, to investigate the incident.

The Army’s 6th Infantry Division was quick to clarify, however, that the dawn raid yesterday by soldiers on more than a dozen houses in Barangay Kalangangan here, where Taps Jilani, chairman of the MILF’s Committee on Cessation of Hostilities, reside, was merely a "police action," not a tactical operation against the front.

"Combatants of the 603rd Brigade searched the houses after receiving a reliable feedback on the presence of kidnappers there. It was just unfortunate that the house of this MILF official was also in the area," said Major Julieto Ando, 6th ID spokesman.

Alladin Darping, a member of Kalanganan’s barangay council, have confirmed that the soldiers who carried out the raid recovered an M16 assault rifle, assorted ammunition and a 9 millimeter pistol from the houses subjected to the search.

Ando said the raid was carried out as part of the military’s continuing effort to prevent attacks by the Pentagon in the city. Pentagon gang members have snatched more than a dozen people here and nearby towns in a spate of attacks since June last year.

Jaafar said the raid on the house of Jilani raised doubts on the government’s confidence-building measures aimed at ensuring the cordiality of the peace talks.

"We have long agreed on the reimposition of the ceasefire and the raid on the houses where the chairman of our CCCH resides was an affront to the MILF," Jaafar said.

Ando said the ceasefire does not stop the police and military to embark on crime-prevention activities in areas where rebel forces are reported to be scattered.

"I will look into that as soon as I get separate reports from the 6th ID and MILF on what is that issue all about," Dureza told The STAR via mobile phone, when asked for comment.