The largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines said yesterday its leader had died of a heart attack in mid-July but pledged to resume peace talks to end a separatist war that has killed at least 120,000 people.
Hashim Salamat, an elderly Islamic preacher rarely seen in public, died on July 13, said Ghazali Jaafar, chief political officer of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
PHOTO: REUTERS
Al Haj Murad -- a Muslim militant since the 1960s who rose to become military chief of the group's estimated 12,500 fighters -- has replaced Salamat as chairman, Jaafar told a radio station on the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao.
Murad, a civil engineer by training, is in his mid-50s. A polished orator, he is usually clad in combat fatigues but is viewed as more of a moderate.
"He is the kind of man who can balance the hardliners and the moderates. He's a man of flexibility," Eid Kabalu, the MILF's spokesman, told reporters.
He affirmed the "commitment to resume peace talks" by the biggest of four rebel groups seeking an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country.
The talks were expected to resume soon in Malaysia.
The Muslim nation is again acting as broker after previous negotiations to end 31 years of violence stalled in late 2001.
Eduardo Ermita, the chief government negotiator, told reporters he believed there was a smooth transition of power in the MILF.
"I think it will contribute to the hastening of the peace process," he said of Murad's rise to chairman. "We are just awaiting the invitation from the Malaysian government."
Under Salamat's command, the MILF was accused by intelligence agencies of allowing its camps to be used as training grounds for Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian militant group linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
At the time of his death, he was facing murder charges over several deadly bombings on Mindanao earlier this year.
The MILF has denied any links to Jemaah Islamiah or other terror groups and says it was not behind the recent bombings.
Salamat, who was supposed to lead the MILF side at the peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, died at his home in Mindanao after being bed-ridden for two weeks, Kabalu said.
"It's quite telling about the Muslim community in Mindanao that they can keep this thing a secret for so long," said one Asian diplomat. "They will never betray people like this."
The soft-spoken guerrilla leader, who at one time lived in a fortified house at a remote MILF jungle camp, is believed to have spent at least part of his time in Malaysia in recent years.
"He was 70 years old. That's just an estimate because we don't celebrate birthdays," Kabalu said.
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