ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Extra Philippine security forces were deployed to the Muslim south Friday to pacify two warring families whose recent clash claimed seven lives, an official said.
Nasser Langis Asikin, village chief of Lower Cabengbeng where the bloody shootout occurred, told reporters Friday that the conflict Sunday had killed four from the family of Abubakar Palaman and three from that of Jabbar Sandiki.
Sr. Supt. Mario Dapillosa, Basilan province police provincial director, said the firefight that continued until Wednesday had sent 1,050 families evacuating to safer places as the two armed sides were poised to continue fighting.
Residents of Tuburan town who spoke to the Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal said that some members from the warring groups are either militants of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf or guerrillas of the country's one-time largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Although the root of the feud remained unclear, it was suspected to be a case of "rido", a generic term in most Moro (or Philippine Muslims) vernaculars that means clan war - usually precipitated by land disputes, affronts on family pride and honor and intense political rivalries.
Tuburan in Basilan province was once a stronghold of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an insurgency from which the MILF broke away. Despite a 1996 peace deal with the government, the MNLF has been threatening to renew war, claiming the government has not implemented some provisions of the agreement.
On March 27, the MILF signed a peace agreement with the government that brought to a close 17 years of negotiations and ended a decades-old armed conflict in the southern area of Mindanao - the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines - while granting Muslim areas greater political autonomy.
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