ZAMBOANGA CITY, 13 February 2005 — Government forces yesterday pounded the escape routes of Moro insurgents on Jolo with rockets and cannon fire but the fleeing guerrillas vowed to “fight to the death.”
In Malaca?ang, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said police guards had barred jailed Moro leader Nur Misuari from access to telephones after discovering that he had been communicating with his commanders in the field.
The leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has been held on rebellion charges at a detention center in Laguna province since 2002.
Using MG520 helicopters and howitzers, military forces slammed rockets and cannon fire into the hideouts of the retreating rebels and along their withdrawal routes on the sixth day of fighting.
The military said the guerrillas were withdrawing because they had run out of ammunition and supplies.
“The air strikes were in support of our [ground] troops in the area,” Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Restituto Padilla said.
Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Alberto Braganza said Misuari’s followers were on the run but the military was determined to go after them and would not stop its pursuit.
As helicopters ferried soldiers to the frontline, fresh reinforcements numbering 120 troops, including the elite Scout Rangers, bowed their heads in prayer before moving into a camp for a briefing, prior to going to the battlefront.
Brig. Gen. Agustin Dema-ala, chief of Joint Task Force Comet on Jolo, said their mandate was clear: “By all means to destroy the group.”
But surrender was far from the thoughts of the fleeing insurgents.
“They do not like to surrender; they will fight to the death,” Rev. Absalom Cerveza, a member of the MNLF panel that negotiated peace with the government in 1996 and who is closely identified with Misuari, said.
Cerveza said he spoke with an MNLF commander in Sulu province on Friday and the guerrilla group vowed to fight it out.
Another MNLF official, Dr. Abdurahman Amin, said: “To them, to surrender is out of the question.”
“They are defending their right. Their actions in terms of retaliation were a form of self-defense because of the series of abuses by the military,” he said.
The military said it had taken control of the insurgents’ stronghold in Barangay Bitanag and soldiers were scouring a 5-km radius for dead or injured rebels.
The military has also thrown a Light Reaction Company trained by US forces in jungle warfare and equipped with night vision goggles into the fight.
No fresh reports of casualty figures from either side were available.
As of Friday, the military said it had killed about 45 MNLF gunmen while suffering 27 fatalities, but there was no body count of the rebel dead.
Dema-ala estimated there were about 200 MNLF gunmen left in the area which ground troops were sweeping and that some of them might be wounded.
He said this was the reason the military and the police in Sulu, Basilan and in the Zamboanga peninsula were closely monitoring hospitals and clinics, because some of the rebel group, led by Ustadz Habier Malik, might seek treatment.
Chief Superintendent Vidal Querol, Western Area Police Office commander, said they were also watching over villages in the Zamboanga peninsula which are known bailiwicks of Misuari’s followers.
Basilan Rep. Gerry Salapuddin warned that fears about the violence escalating would not be farfetched unless the offensive was halted.
Ermita said the discovery of Misuari’s telephone calls bolstered suspicions that he had something to do with the current Jolo fighting.
“There is that possibility because there are reports coming from members of the (MNLF) Central Committee themselves who are wondering why Misuari was allowed to talk to his commanders,” Ermita said.
National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales also said on Friday that the government was looking into any role Misuari might have played in the clashes.
Ermita and Gonzales rejected calls from some Muslim leaders for the government to talk to Misuari to ask him to persuade his followers to stop fighting.
Ermita said that, while the clashes in Sulu were “isolated,” these might have an effect in other areas because the breakaway group was also persuading other MNLF members to join the renewed rebellion.
“But they are not responding,” Ermita said.
Ermita said Marawi City Mayor Omar Ali, an MNLF leader in Lanao, sent him a text message saying he was ignoring countering calls from the renegades for him to fight the government.
