MANILA, 20 August 2007 — Government troops have seized a well-developed Abu Sayyaf rebel base, a senior military official said yesterday, in a bloody retaliatory offensive spurred by the beheading of soldiers last month.
At least 35 soldiers and militants were killed in the raid, which started at dawn on Saturday and raged until the early afternoon on the remote town of Ungkaya Pukan in the southern island of Basilan.
Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Ariel Caculitan said weapons were also found in the rebel base, which had several underground bunkers and tunnels and well-developed trenches,
The bodies of 20 militants had been recovered, Caculitan said, but the military was verifying reports up to 40 were killed in the attack, including two commanders who allegedly took part in last month’s beheadings of 10 Marines in the nearby town of Al-Barka.
Fifteen soldiers, including five junior officers, in the fighting were killed and seven were wounded. An air force pilot also died and his co-pilot was injured when their chopper crashed into the sea on Saturday while providing support for the attacking Marines.
Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, the military commander in Western Mindanao, said the Marines apparently underestimated the rebels’ firepower.
“They were not able to assess properly the strength of the enemy during the assault,” Cedo told ABS-CBN television.
Saturday’s clash involved about 80 Abu Sayyaf gunmen, Cedo said, adding that hundreds of troops were pursuing those who survived. The bodies of slain rebels were scattered around the battle scene, he said.
Military chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf commander wanted by the US and Philippine governments for alleged kidnappings and bomb attacks, was among those being hunted by troops in Basilan.
It was not clear whether Hapilon was involved in Saturday’s fighting.
“We are making a promise to make the province unfit for those who want to rule it with arms,” Esperon said.
Troops fired 105 mm howitzer shells early yesterday at suspected Abu Sayyaf positions near Ungkaya Pukan and the nearby towns of Sumisip and Tipo Tipo but there was no immediate report of casualties, officials said.
On nearby Jolo island, troops raided a suspected Abu Sayyaf safe house in Indanan township early yesterday. They took into custody 19 men, women and children and seized four M-16 rifles and ammunition, army Maj. Gen. Ruben Rafael said.
After questioning, 14 were released but five men remained in military custody while investigators tried to determine whether they were Abu Sayyaf gunmen, Rafael said.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said US forces involved in counterterrorism training in the country’s south were providing intelligence to help Philippine troops track down the Abu Sayyaf militants. The Americans have also provided combat training to local troops.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had ordered a fresh offensive against the Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent group listed by Washington as a terrorist organization, after it was implicated in the July 10 beheadings of 10 marines following a clash in Basilan’s Al-Barka township.
A larger Muslim rebel group engaged in peace talks with the government, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, admitted its rebels killed 14 marines during the clash in Al-Barka, accusing them of encroaching into a rebel stronghold.
But the MILF denied its men beheaded 10 of the 14 marines.
Angered by the beheadings, the 120,000-strong military launched a new offensive against the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan and Jolo island.
‘Waste of Lives’
Amid the continuing violence, the 59-strong “Mindanao bloc” at the House of Representatives joined the clamor for an end to the full-scale military operations in the troubled region and Basilan’s Catholic bishop decribed the deaths of combatants as a “waste of lives.”
In a series of meetings, the Caucus of Mindanao Representatives agreed to support only “selective operations” targeting members of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group, according to Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro.
But convinced that the proposed strategy would not solve the “root causes” of the armed conflict, the Mindanao lawmakers decided to throw their support behind the “mini-Marshall plan” floated by Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.
“The current violence in Mindanao will not address the root causes of the problem,” Rodriguez, one of the main organizers of the bloc, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday
Anak Mindanao Rep. Mujiv Hataman, a native of Basilan, expressed concern yesterday over the plight of civilians caught in the middle of the conflict. Nearly 24,000 people have been affected or displaced by the fighting in Basilan and Jolo.
Bishop Martin Jumoad of the Prelature Isabela de Basilan said “it was very frustrating when you really work for peace and ways for reconciliation and then, here we go again, there are a lot of killings.
“I can’t help it. I was frustrated last night, really. I’m very sorry for those who died, a waste of life. I cannot express my sentiments this time. What I feel is frustration and I am angry,” Jumoad said in a mix of English and Filipino.
The bishop said over the weekend, he was in Tipo-Tipo for a youth gathering and there seemed to be peace in the area, only to find out that fighting had once again erupted. Jumoad said the government should consider extending livelihood and continuing education on the “concept of peace” to the young and old of Basilan to help in building lasting peace in the province.
‘Eye-for-an-Eye’
A nationwide organization of Catholic religious orders condemned the government’s “eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth” response to the beheadings and ambush of the soldiers.
In a press statement, the AMRSP questioned the government’s equally “violent response” to the criminal acts of the Abu Sayyaf.
“The killing of the soldiers and the beheading of some are truly abhorrent acts. But why should we follow the way of violence, resorting to similarly abhorrent acts in order to ‘correct’; violence? Killing is immoral and wrong, whichever side is doing it — rebels or soldiers,” the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP) said.
The group urged the government “to persevere in its resolve to continue dialogue and peace negotiations despite the pressure for revenge over the recent bloodbath.”
It appealed to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) “to honor (their) commitment to peace by returning to the negotiating table despite the resurgence of yet another military campaign.”
“We seek justice for the deaths of the duty-bound soldiers not out of revenge but through peaceful means, upholding law and order, in the same way that we seek justice for the many civilian victims of wars of aggression,” the group said.
“We need to risk and begin trusting each other as the guiding value during these times of ambiguity, if indeed we are committed to a lasting solution to the conflict in Mindanao,” it added. (From reports of Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
