Philippine troops wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles yesterday stormed the homes of a powerful clan suspected of involvement in a massacre that left 57 people dead.
More than 100 soldiers and dozens of police raided the mansion of Andal Ampatuan Jr, a local mayor in the southern Philippines who has been charged with 25 counts of murder so far over last week’s slaughter.
Homes of other members of the Ampatuan clan, including the patriarch of the family, who has been the governor of Maguindanao province since 2001, were entered in subsequent raids yesterday morning, authorities said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr was not detained in the raid.
Police said this week they had indicted Ampatuan Sr and four other family members for their alleged role in the massacre, and were waiting for the justice department to decide whether to charge them in court.
Ampatuan Sr had ruled the strife-torn province with the backing of his own private army and installed his family members into a myriad of government positions.
However, the coalition expelled Ampatuan Sr and Jr, as well as another relative who held a senior position on the southern island of Mindanao that encompasses Maguindanao, following the Nov. 23 massacre.
Police allege Ampatuan Jr and 100 of his gunmen shot dead the occupants of a convoy that included relatives of his rival for the post of Maguindanao governor in next year’s elections, as well as a group of journalists.
The rival, Esmael Mangudadatu, said the killings were carried out to stop him from running for office.
The compound that was raided yesterday is surrounded by concrete walls about 2m high and contains the homes of a number of Ampatuan clan members.
GMA television aired footage of one of Ampatuan Sr’s sons, Sajid Ampatuan, crying as an armored troop carrier entered the gate of his compound and with the clan’s security men lying face down on the floor.
The raids took place after investigators on Thursday unearthed a large cache of weapons that had been buried in a vacant lot near the Ampatuan compound, another military official said on GMA television.
“We believe that these were used during the massacre,” Colonel Leo Ferrer, commander of an army brigade in the area who led the search, said in an interview aired by the station.
The weapons inventory included three anti-tank recoilless rifles, five mortars, seven machine guns, 10 rifles and pistols, and more than 100 boxes of bullets.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS