By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Government troops have clashed with a breakaway faction of the Philippines’ one-time largest Muslim rebel group after guerillas harassed a civilian community – the morning after two soldiers were killed at a hospital.
Colonel Dickson Hermoso, 6th Infantry Division spokesman, said in a statement that Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, known as BIFF, attacked Bagumbayan village in Sultan Kudarat province at 06.30 local time (01.30 Turkish time) Thursday, but were repulsed by units of the 33rd Infantry Battalion.
"Pursuit operations are underway against the fleeing rebels," Hermoso added.
No casualties were reported from the clashes.
The latest BIFF attack comes the morning after its members were suspected of killing two soldiers guarding an emergency room at a government hospital in Maguindanao province in central Mindanao - the southern-most major island of the archipelago.
Late Wednesday, attackers used the soldiers' own M-16 assault rifles to riddle their bodies with bullets before fleeing.
Supt. Noel De los Reyes, police chief in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the slaying may have been in retaliation for the arrest of a high-ranking member, Abi Salman, earlier this week.
Abi Salman, also known as Sauman Usman, is said to be the nephew of Jemaah Islamiyah militant Abdul Basit Usman, who underwent explosives training in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1990s.
Salman is also believed to have links to militant groups Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah, both associated with al-Qaeda, and had been wanted by Philippine police for a spate of deadly bombings.
His uncle was indicted for his role in bomb attacks dating to 2003. He is believed to be hiding in central Mindanao, where a number of Islamist groups are fighting for greater autonomy. He was rumored to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan in January 2010 but was reportedly seen in the Philippines in June this year.
During a Peace and Order Council meeting last month in Maguindanao, security officials said BIFF had created a 'liquidation team' to avenge the deaths of its members.
Maguindanao is the main bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front which signed a peace deal in March with the government, bringing to a close 17 years of negotiations and ending a decades-old armed conflict while granting Muslim areas greater political autonomy.
Since breaking away from the Front in 2008, BIFF has vowed to destroy the peace deal. The group is fighting for an independent Moro state, named after the region's indigenous Muslims, in the south.
www.aa.com.tr/en
