Monday, May 25, 2009

MILF rebels attack army posts in southern Philippines

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / May 25, 2009) – Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters attacked several army posts as clashes continue in the southern Philippines.

The MILF, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group fighting for independence in the troubled region, said its forces fired anti-rockets at the positions of the Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion late Sunday.

The attack, it said, left a still undetermined number of soldiers either dead or wounded in the village of Datu Gumbay in Maguindanao’s Datu Piang town. The MILF said it was targeting the 105mm cannons and munitions storage of the army soldiers.

“We aimed to hit the 105mm howitzers and their ammunition so that we can destroy the firepower being used by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in its indiscriminate artillery attacks against our troops and innocent civilians,” it said in a statement.

Rebel forces also attacked government troops earlier in the day in the village of Teren-Teren in North Cotabato’s Alamada town and three other areas in the towns of Banisilan, Aleosan and Midsayap.

”Guerilla counter offensives of the MILF had rendered big casualties, unrests, sleepless nights, budget wastes and failure to the already more than nine-months government military campaign to crush the MILF military structures,” the MILF said.

The military did not give any statement about the rebel attacks and army spokesmen in Mindanao did not answer telephone calls from journalists. (Mindanao Examiner)

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