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Two Moro militant camps captured in Mindanao
[Straits Times] Philippine security forces have killed dozens of Muslim militants and captured at least two camps in a nearly month-long offensive against insurgents in Mindanao.

Army spokesman Filemon Tan said that 42 militants from a group with ties to the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah were killed in clashes that began last Saturday. One of the rebe; bastions in Butig town in Lanao del Sur province fell on Thursday. Three soldiers were killed and 11 injured.

Last Saturday evening, about 80 militants led by brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute, said to be former associates of an Indonesian JI operative known only as Sanusi, who was killed in 2012, attacked a detachment of the 51st Infantry Battalion in Butig. Troops drove the rebels back, and the army counter-attacked with howitzers, bombers, helicopters and armored vehicles.

The Lanao del Sur clashes broke out just as the army was wrapping up a 24-day offensive against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in neighboring Maguindanao province. A BIFF camp in Datu Salibo town fell on Sunday after intense battles that began on February 5.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ambrosio Rustia, head of the Army 57th Infantry Battalion, said hundreds of BIFF militants who held the camp had fled with their casualties deep into marshlands bordering Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces. The army reported that it lost three soldiers, one during operations to clear the BIFF camp of landmines.
Posted by: ryuge 2016-02-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=447028