ZAMBOANGA CITY, 13 June 2004 — At least three people were wounded after gunmen attacked a small village and torched rows of thatched houses in the southern Philippines, military and separatist rebel leaders said.
The attack on Thursday left one militiaman injured and sent residents fleeing from the remote town of Talitay in Maguindanao province, the military said.
Military officials said some 100 gunmen led by Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Mardikay Kamid swooped down on the village of Nunangan and burned the houses after a firefight with militiamen.
The attack was an offshoot of a long-time feud between Kamid’s group and villagers in Nunangan, the military said.
The MILF confirmed the fighting, but it blamed the militias, headed by Saidanin Midtimbang, of starting it.
Separatist spokesman Eid Kabalu said Midtimbang’s group harassed Kamid’s group in the nearby village of Macadayun, a stronghold of rebel forces.
Kabalu said two of Kamid’s fighters were also wounded in the clash. He said at least 25 houses were burned, but denied that MILF fighters were involved.
“The MILF fighters did not torch the houses. Politicians, who are opposed to the MILF, were behind that incident and then put the blame on us,” Kabalu told Arab News.
He said the conflict stemmed from claims of a vast tract of ancestral lands in the town.
Last week, the military’s Southern Command also accused MILF fighters of attacking a small farming village in North Cotabato’s Pikit town with small rockets, but there had been no civilian casualties.
It said rebel leader Habi Jabal fired at least 5 rounds of rockets into the village to avenge the murder of a follower last month by a rival group.
The military has previously linked the MILF to foreign terror groups, a charge the separatists have repeatedly denied.
Manila is currently negotiating peace with the MILF, the country’s largest separatist rebel group in the south, in an effort to end the more than three decades of hostilities in the south.
