ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Four insurgents have been killed in an attack on the Philippine army and former rebels who signed a peace deal with the government in the country’s Muslim south.
Army spokesperson Colonel Dickson Hermoso told The Anadolu Agency Monday a soldier was also wounded when some 50 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) gunmen attacked soldiers in Sapakan village in southern Maguindanao province at 20.45 local time (14.45 Turkish time) Sunday night.
The BIFF has vowed to destroy a March 27 peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), from which it broke away in 2008.
“They were trying to overrun our army positions, in the process they also attacked an MILF detachment in the village,” Hermoso said.
The wounded soldier sustained minor injuries and no casualty was reported on the MILF side.
Saying that Sunday’s encounter was among a series of attack, Hermoso added, "Our troops had been on alert since last week because of the BIFF atrocities.”
On Friday, two fleeing civilians were killed when a mortar landed near a boat by a river that divides North Cotabato and Maguindanao.
The group had earlier launched mortars at two army outposts in the village of Kabasalan, North Cotabato.
Hundreds of civilians were forced to flee the same day amid BIFF attacks on army positions in Datu Piang municipality in Maguindanao - the MILF’s main bastion.
The army has set up more checkpoints in areas where the BIFF operates to prevent attacks on civilians in the two provinces, according to Hermoso.
The group is fighting for an independent Moro state, named after the region's indigenous Muslims, in the south. It has about 1,000 armed followers, mostly rag-tag rebels who engage in extortion, kidnapping, robbery, and bombings in the Central Mindanao region.
www.aa.com.tr/en
