Philippine soldiers captured a key jungle stronghold of Muslim rebels, ousting defenders blamed for recent attacks on an army post and bombings in Manila and two other cities, military officials said yesterday.
Lieutenant General Alberto Braganza, commander of the military's Southern Command, was to fly by helicopter with other military officials to Bitan-ag, the hilly complex near Panamao town that hundreds of troops wrested from armed followers of jailed Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari after days of fierce gunbattles.
Philippine Army Captain Abdurasad Sirajan, spokesman for an anti-terrorist military task force, told reporters that "the entire Bitan-ag camp has been fully captured."
All of the fewer than 100 gunmen fled in small groups toward Jolo's mountainous center as the military moved in. Soldiers would pursue the gunmen, who are led by local religious leader Habier Malik, the military said.
After suffering heavy casualties in the clashes, military officials brimmed with pride over the rebel camp's capture.
"They can't win over the government, whatever their lawless desire is," Southern Command chief of staff Colonel Domingo Tutaan said.
About 3,000 soldiers and marines have been pursuing Misuari's followers -- backed by guerrillas of the Abu Sayyaf group -- since they attacked an army detachment in Panamao on Feb. 7, provoking clashes that killed 27 soldiers and wounded 72 others. Troops have killed 37 gunmen and wounded scores of others, the military said.
The rebel attacks were apparently a retaliation for the death of a number of people, including a child, who were caught in a crossfire when troops assaulted a community of Misuari's followers while pursuing suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. The military has acknowledged the child was accidentally hit in an army assault.
Abu Sayyaf -- blamed for numerous kidnappings in the southern Philippines -- claimed responsibility for bombings Monday in Manila's financial district and the southern cities of General Santos and Davao which killed seven people and wounded at least 123, apparently to divert the military's attention and ease the pressure on the beleaguered gunmen on Jolo, the military said.
Despite the bomb attacks, President Gloria Arroyo said Tuesday that the military assaults on Jolo would continue. She vowed to crush the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf.
"The desperation of the enemy cannot be underestimated, even as it lies in the throes of defeat," Arroyo said. "More than ever, we must not pull back but move forward to wipe out the remnants of the Abu Sayyaf."
Security forces were placed on full alert nationwide to thwart more bombings.
Misuari formerly headed the Moro National Liberation Front, a large Muslim separatist group that accepted limited autonomy and signed a peace accord with the government in 1996.
But violence reignited years later and Misuari was imprisoned near Manila on charges of rebellion. Many of his armed followers have peacefully settled in Jolo but have been periodically accused of coddling Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.
From his mountain lair protected by dense jungle, Haber Malik, leader of the Muslim rebellion on remote Jolo island in the southern Philippines, made an impassioned plea recently for support.
In a tape recorded message Malik, who heads one of the many factions of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), called on fellow Muslims to unify against "abuses" by troops cracking down on militants in the Sulu archipelago, where Jolo is located.
"My brothers and sisters in Jolo and the surrounding islands, we have to help each other. If you let the military get away with these abuses, we will be like chickens, being eaten one by one," he urged.
Then came the Valentine's Day bombings, three explosions which rocked the capital Manila as well as Davao City and General Santos on southern Mindanao island, killing 12 people and injuring more than 130.
Another Muslim group, the extremist Abu Sayyaf, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Its spokesman Abu Solaiman said on radio shortly after Monday night's bombings that it was a "response to the Philippine government's atrocities committed against Muslims everywhere ... from Manila to remote areas like Sulu."
For the government and the military the concern was that the Abu Sayyaf -- a kidnap gang named by the US as a terror organization believed to have links to Al Qaeda -- had joined forces with Malik.
In recent years Abu Sayyaf, which has been kidnapping Christians and foreigners for ransom and staging bombing attacks throughout the country, has been the main thorn in the side of successive Philippine governments and the military.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS