MANILA: Scores of suspected militants burst through a concrete wall then barged into a jail in the volatile southern Philippines on Sunday, freeing 31 inmates in a nighttime attack that sparked a gunbattle in which two people were killed.
Vice Gov. Al Rasheed Sakalahul of Basilan Island said 70 heavily armed men cut through padlocks with bolt-cutters after using a sledgehammer to destroy the wall at the provincial jail in Isabela city to free several detained militants. Other inmates also dashed to freedom, he said.
The daring assault sparked a brief clash that killed one attacker and a jail guard. The attackers and prisoners fled in several vehicles toward Basilan’s jungle-covered mountainous heartland, Sakalahul said. At least 31 inmates escaped, including five militants from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a rebel group engaged in peace talks with the government, and 12 from the smaller but more from Abu Sayyaf group, regional military commander Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino said.
Among those who escaped was Dan Asnawi, a Moro rebel commander, and another militant who have been accused of beheading 10 marines during a 2007 clash, regional marine spokesman Maj. Joel Lazo said.
“All these are high-risk prisoners,” Sakalahul said, adding troops, backed by air force helicopters, were closing in on some of the fleeing inmates. None had been caught by late Sunday, however.
Military checkpoints were set up in Isabela, the provincial capital, and nearby townships, Dolorfino said.
The rundown provincial jail has had a history of jailbreaks. Three Abu Sayyaf militants, also accused of beheading the 10 marines, escaped in December last year after overpowering their guards. At least 16 people, including four Abu Sayyaf members, escaped in 2007.
In the biggest jailbreak, 53 of the prison’s more than 130 inmates overpowered their guards using a smuggled pistol and fled in 2004. Nineteen Abu Sayyaf members were among those who escaped, police said.
Sunday’s jail attack was the latest violence in the southern Mindanao region, scene of a decades-long separatist rebellion.
It occurred hours before Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales and military chief of staff Gen. Victor Ibrado flew to Basilan, a predominantly Muslim island 880 km south of Manila, to meet Roman Catholic church leaders who have appealed for martial law to be declared in the province amid recent kidnappings blamed on Islamic militants and the beheading of one hostage.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo imposed martial law in nearby Maguindanao province last week to allow troops to crack down on a powerful political clan blamed for the savage massacre of 57 people, including 30 journalists, on Nov. 23. Arroyo lifted martial law in Maguindanao on Saturday but the province remains under a state of emergency.
Hostages released
Meanwhile, tribal gunmen in the southern Philippines on Sunday released 47 hostages they had been holding for three days, after authorities agreed not to arrest them and animals were sacrificed.
The ending to the ordeal was a rare piece of good news for the lawless south. The vice governor of Agusan del Sur, where the mass kidnapping took place, told reporters that government negotiators had signed a deal not to arrest the kidnappers, a key factor in ending the stand-off.
“Yes at last! Yahoo!,” Vice Gov. Santiago Cane said in a mobile phone text message to the media after he picked up the hostages from the gunmen’s hideout in a cleared patch of jungle on a mountaintop.
