Muslim rebels holding scores of hostages in the southern Philippines are demanding international mediation, an official said yesterday, as fresh rounds of fire broke out between government troops and the guerrillas on the third day of the standoff.
The rebels, enraged by a broken peace deal with Manila, put a dozen civilians tied together by a rope on display as a human shield yesterday near the port city of Zamboanga.
Waving white flags, the hostages shouted: “Please don’t shoot” at soldiers as rebel snipers perched on roof of a residential block fired at the troops about 500m away in the Santa Barbara District of the city on the southern island of Mindanao.
Photo: EPA
In another part of the city, three wounded rebels were arrested after exchanging gunfire with police a road block to stop the rebels, a breakaway faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), from occupying other districts.
“Our troops are only returning fire. We are not launching an offensive,” Philippine army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala said. “Our mission is to contain them not to rescue hostages.”
The standoff has paralyzed the port, with as many as 170 civilians believed to be trapped or held hostage.
Schools, shops, offices were closed for the third day. Flights and ferry services were also suspended. About 12,000 people have been displaced in five districts of the port, known as the city of flowers.
Four decades of conflict have killed 120,000 people, displaced 2 million and stunted growth in the poor, but resource-rich, south of the mainly Catholic country.
Last year, another separatist group, the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), signed a deal with the government, agreeing to a new autonomous region that gave it more political control.
That agreement, which spurred hopes of an economic revival, was opposed by the MNLF faction involved in the current standoff. It signed a deal with government in 1996, but complained Manila did not fulfill its side of the bargain.
Zamboanga Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco Salazar appealed to rebels to free the hostages and discuss their grievances with Manila, during a TV interview with network ABS-CBN.
Climaco said the rebels were demanding international mediation. She said a former governor from the rebels’ stronghold of Sulu Province tried to talk to the gunmen on Tuesday, but “they refuse to listen to anybody locally.”
“They say that it’s an international problem, and no less than the international community, the UN, should come in,” she said.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said the top priority was the safety of the hostages and residents of the city. He sent top Cabinet officials and his military chief of staff to oversee the security crisis.
Philippine Secretary of the Interior Mar Roxas said a crisis committee led by Climaco was ready to negotiate with the guerrillas for the release of the hostages.
He said that some officials had opened talks with the rebels “at different levels,” including a commander loyal to MNLF founder Nur Misuari, but added there had been no breakthrough.
Troops have surrounded the MNLF guerrillas and their hostages in four coastal villages.
At least nine people have been killed since the standoff began on Monday.
Zamboanga was virtually shut down, with most air flights and ferry services suspended.
Communities near the clashes resembled a war zone, with armored troop carriers lining streets, troops massing at a school and snipers taking positions atop buildings.
The crisis comes as the MILF has made substantial progress toward a new autonomy deal for Muslims in peace talks with Manila.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.