At least 14 people were killed in a land dispute involving two Muslim guerrilla commanders and their followers in a southern Philippine town, military and civilian officials said yesterday.
The fighting erupted on Wednesday between two commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in a village in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao del Sur province, but a truce had since been forged.
The fighting was set off by a long-running land dispute between the clans of the two rebel commanders.
Photo: Reuters Archive
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front was the largest Muslim separatist armed group in the southern Philippines, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation until it signed a peace deal with the Philippine government in 2014, when it dropped its separatist goal and agreed to a better-funded Muslim autonomous region called Bangsamoro in the nation’s south.
The six-province Muslim region is now governed by former rebel leaders in a transition arrangement.
However, thousands of guerrillas belonging to the rebel front were still holding on to their firearms while awaiting amnesty and livelihood packages from the government under the peace deal.
Pagalungan Vice Mayor Abdillah Mamasabulod said that a feud over farmland erupted anew into fierce fighting on Wednesday afternoon in the village of Kilangan.
“They have been fighting over ownership of about 290 hectares of agricultural land,” said Mamasabulod, who renewed a call for the clans to settle their dispute peacefully through government and rebel mediators.
Mamasabulod cited witnesses as saying that up to 19 people were killed in the sporadic fighting and scores were wounded before a ceasefire was forged.
Philippine Army Lieutenant Colonel Roden Orbon, spokesman of the 6th Infantry Division, said that at least 14 people were killed in the intermittent clashes in the village, where government forces were deployed to secure civilian villagers.
Troops recovered five rifles at the scene of the fighting.
“The military and police are continuously conducting monitoring in all nearby hospitals and coordinating with the leadership of both warring groups to identify the still unidentified bodies,” Orbon said.
Villagers who fled at the height of the fighting were returning to their communities, he said.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decided to shelve proposed legislation that would give elected officials full control over their stipends, saying it would wait for a consensus to be reached before acting. KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) last week proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and the Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Village Chiefs (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例), which would give legislators and councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement. The proposal immediately drew criticism, amid reports that several legislators face possible charges of embezzling fees intended to pay
RSS