FORTY al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels, including two suspected members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), were killed in a military airstrike over their alleged hideout on a marshland in Datu Piang town, Maguindanao province, officials said Friday. Lieutenant General Alberto Braganza, military Southern Command (SouthCom) chief, told Camp Aguinaldo reporters that the death toll was based on radio signals from the rebels, intercepted by military intelligence. Major General Raul Relano, chief of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, said in a separate interview that three rebels were injured based on initial reports.Braganza and Relano said they could not determine the affiliations of the other casualties. One government soldier, flying a helicopter gunship, was slightly wounded, Relano said. Some 300 MILF rebels, led by renegade commander Wahid Kalil Tondok, were in Butilan marsh allegedly coddling some 40 Abu Sayyaf bandits and several JI members, Relano said. "They have scattered in the area. It is useless bombing them now," Relano said in a telephone interview.
Relano said checkpoints were set up around the marsh area to prevent the bandits from escaping. An Inquirer report from Cotabato City said one JI member was killed although he could not be positively identified. Colonel Gerry Jalandoni, chief of the 604th Infantry Brigade, said military agents could not say who among the Indonesians -- Dulmatin, Mohammad Ali Abdulrahiman alias Muhayiha and Saki alias Maruan -- was killed during the air strikes.
A Huey helicopter almost crashed when bullets from caliber 50 hit its tail while it was trying to insert troops in the marshland on Thursday to recover the remains of the slain suspected terrorist, Jalandoni said. This prompted the Air Force to launch a second wave of attacks in the afternoon, he added. Jalandoni said about 70 renegade Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members were monitored in the area during the air attacks. He said the manhunt against the followers of Tondok shifted to Sultan Kudarat province following reports that his group moved from the towns of Datu Piang, Mamasapano, Sultan sa Barongis, Ampatuan -- all in Maguindanao -- to Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat.
Tondok's group was allegedly behind an attack on an Army detachment in Linantangan town earlier this month, which left seven soldiers and 15 rebels killed. Tondok has refused to surrender to the government and the MILF. The MILF, while insisting that it did not sanction the assault, refused to surrender the Muslim rebel leader. Meanwhile, MILF spokesman Eid "Lipless Eddie" Kabalu said the latest military attack was a "blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement" and that it would file a protest before the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH). Kabalu however maintained that the attacks would not affect the resumption of peace talks, slated in February in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Brigadier General Alexander Yano, military spokesman, expressed a similar view. "We don't think so
the operation was targeted against the same groups which the MILF says is not affiliated with them," Yano told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo. "But informally, we told them that the operation was targeted against the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah and not against the MILF," Yano added. In Malacañang, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the ongoing clashes would not get in the way of the scheduled resumption of peace negotiations between the government and the secessionist group. But while the government was willing to sit down anew with the MILF, Bunye said government forces would continue to pursue terrorist cells in the South, including the renegade members of the MILF. "We are confident this will not hinder the peace talks with the MILF, which is also forsworn to fight terror. Terrorism is our common enemy and there is no disagreement that it could be defeated," he said.