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What really happened in Mindanao on Sunday?
 [Inquirer] Information gathered from different sources, including Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief Murad Ebrahim, has been used to piece together the events in Maguindanao that led to the deaths of 44 elite police commandos in a gun battle with Moro militants on Sunday.Around 6:30 a.m. the MILF fighters in Tukanalipao noticed armed uniformed men approaching. Murad said it was the policemen from Special Action Force (SAF) who first fired upon members of the MILF 105th Base Command, sparking the firefight. The scene of battle was a vast cornfield where the SAF commandos, reportedly not familiar with the terrain, ended up as sitting ducks for some 100 MILF fighters.  A government source said that the SAF forces were divided into two units, a primary force and a secondary force. The primary force was to get Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias "Marwan," a bomb expert from Jemaah Islamiyah on whose head the United States had placed a $6-million bounty. The SAF had a secondary target, local terrorist Abdul Basit Usman, another bomb expert for whose capture the United States has offered a $3-million reward. The secondary force was to "protect" the primary force. It was the secondary force that ended up fighting the MILF guerrillas from the 105th Base Command, the source said. After several hours of fighting, the two sides deescalated but as the MILF withdrew, the source said, militants from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) opened fire on the SAF.  The BIFF had another version of what happened. Group spokesman Abu Misri Mama said at the start, only BIFF militants were involved in the incident. When BIFF forces detected several military vehicles, they prepared an ambush. Mama said, "Many of the casualties [fell] during the ambush."Posted by: ryuge 2015-01-29 |
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