GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines, 26 April 2004 — A member of the “15-member Council” of the Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) was killed in an ambush yesterday in Sultan Kudarat province, Arab News learned.
Commander Jasmin Drah was on board a motorcycle with his wife and his younger brother at about 3 p.m. when they were gunned down by still unidentified men at Bagyangen village in barangay Butril of Palimbang town, sources said.
No one has claimed responsibility so far for the murder.
The victim is a candidate for a seat in the municipal council of Palimbang.
Relatives could not give a definitive statement on the motive of the killings, either related to politics or due to a personal grudge.
But speculation was rife that Drah was really the target.
The so-called 15-man council came into being in 2001 after declaring Nur Misuari’s chairmanship vacant.
Misuari, who served as governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), is now under detention in Laguna, south of Manila, on a charge of rebellion.
A graduate of the prestigious University of the Philippines, Misuari founded the MNLF in the 1970s to fight for an independent Muslim state in the southern Philippines.
In 1978, however, some of his leaders broke away over policy differences to form the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), now the biggest armed Muslim group seeking independence from Manila.
Misuari’s MNLF signed a peace deal with Manila in 1996, after which many of his leaders and commanders were absorbed in the government bureaucracy, either as career officers or politicians.
