COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 21 October — Army soldiers have paid dearly for an attack against Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) positions in the southern province of Maguindanao on Friday, the separatist group said yesterday.
An MILF press statement claimed that 11 army soldiers were killed in action and seven militiamen were missing.
Citing reports from its field units, the MILF said the casualties were inflicted when its fighters repulsed an attack in Barangay Inaladan of Datu Piang town.
The soldiers belong to the army’s 201st Brigade and the militiamen were of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units, said the statement.
“The assault was so planned as this was preceded by intense shelling of 105mm howitzers mounted in the nearby town of Mamasapano followed by two sorties made by two (2) units MG-520 attack helicopters before the ground attack was executed at about 3 p.m.
“Heavy exchanges of gunfire lasted only for about an hour and the MILF unit repositioned itself applying guerilla tactics that says’fight only when the situation is at all time advantage to the group,’” said Hasan Indal, a unit commander of the MILF in Datu Piang.
Indal said that on midnight Friday, their fighters managed to get closer to the army soldiers’ position at Mamasapano and engaged the group in a surprise attack.
The MILF claimed that the soldiers retaliated on Saturday by torching several dozens pf residential houses in the areas of Inaladan and Bagumbong.
It said the military has sent five army battalions to the towns of Sultan Sa Barongis, Datu Piang, Sharif Aguak, Mamasapano and Talayan, all of Maguindanao.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu, meanwhile, described as "incredible" the claim by Brig. Gen. Alfonso Dagudag, commander of the Philippine Army's 4th Infantry Division, that about 40 MILF fighters were killed since the military launched its operation in Lanao del Sur and del Norte on Oct. 12.
Kabalu said the military's claim of having captured a 12-hectare MILF camp in Sultan Gumander town "is nothing but part of the military's psychological operations with the primary intention to deceive the people from truth and to the actual happening on the ground."
"The truth is that the military has yet to engage MILF fighters in Sultan Gumander so that it is impossible to inflict casualty to them there being no actual contact between the two forces," he said.
