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MILF used peace talks lull for recruiting
DATU PIANG, Philippines: Moro fighters in the southern Philippines trained foreign militants and recruited child soldiers while engaged in peace talks with the government, according to documents seen by AFP.

Military intelligence officials said they recovered training manuals and bomb-making paraphernalia from a Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) camp on southern Mindanao island last week.

Among the evidence were books with details on bomb making, evasion and attacks, as well as fake identification cards of foreign militants, some from the Middle East, the officials said.

“We are trying to determine who these people are but clearly it shows you that the MILF has never stopped taking in foreign militants into its camps on Mindanao,” one intelligence officer who did not want to be identified told AFP.

“While we have been talking peace to them the past five years, they used the lull in fighting to continue recruiting, and establishing connections to foreign militants,” the officer said. “The bomb making technology is obviously imported.” The MILF has for the past 40 years been fighting for a homeland for the minority Muslim community on Mindanao. Fresh violence erupted on the island last month when the group’s negotiations with the government were officially scrapped after 11 years.

One of the training manuals said MILF recruits were taught to have an “aggressive spirit” and the “will to close and kill or capture the enemy.” The lectures, written in a mix of English and Arabic, include military instructions on map reading and on assembling fuses and powerful homemade bombs using cigarette lighters. There were also step-by-step instructions on securing a given area using advanced grid systems, planting a bomb and maintaining a safe distance at the time of explosion.

“The purpose of combat-training is to mold you into a tough, self reliant fighting man, capable of performing effectively as a member of your team,” according to one of the instruction manuals. The army also retrieved pictures of what appear to be induction ceremonies for boys in their early teens being trained to join the MILF. The youngsters appear to be holding high-powered automatic rifles as they listen to an address by MILF commander Americal Umbra Kato.
Posted by: Classer 2008-09-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=250786