02 September 2016•Update: 02 September 2016
By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines
Suspected Daesh-linked militants killed four members of a rebel group in the Philippines’ Muslim south Friday amid a military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf, according to local media.
News broadcaster ABS-CBN reported that Abu Sayyaf gunmen attacked a camp of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in the island province of Sulu.
The fatalities included four MNLF members and an Abu Sayyaf militant.
The attack came after the Abu Sayyaf issued statements via text message and social media threatening to launch massive attacks on military camps and communities in Sulu after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered troops to intensify operations against the group.
Members of the MNLF have been known to play a role in efforts against the Abu Sayyaf, with the group’s commitment increasing after Duterte reached out to include the indigenous Moro front in the ongoing peace process in southern Mindanao.
Last month, four Abu Sayyaf members died after a firefight with MNLF fighters in the Sulu town of Kalingalang Caluang.
The four MNLF members killed Friday were reportedly from the faction of the group’s fugitive founder Nur Misuari, who earlier this year initiated negotiations with the Abu Sayyaf that resulted in the militants’ release of 14 Indonesian sailors.
Duterte and Misuari have expressed interest in meeting to discuss peace, with the president even asking security forces to overlook the charges of genocide, rebellion and crimes against humanity pressed against Misuari.
In 2013, Misuari’s MNLF faction laid siege to the majority-Christian city of Zamboanga to protest a peace process by rival group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which Misuari claims leave Muslims in the country’s south shortchanged in comparison to an earlier MNLF peace deal.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles -- has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.
It is one of two militant groups in the south who have pledged allegiance to Daesh, prompting fears during the stalling of a peace process between the government and the MILF that it could make inroads in a region torn by decades of armed conflict.
