A Muslim rebel group fighting for independence in the southern Philippines has strongly denied involvements in the spate of deadly bombings that had killed and wounded dozens of innocent civilians in the restive region.
“This spate of bombings is not ours. We are fighting for the cause and freedom of the Bangsamoro people,” Abu Misry Mama, a spokesman for the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, said in a clandestine interview with the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner in the southern Philippines.
He said they are fighting for a jihad and has nothing to do with terror groups being linked by authorities to his group and its army of freedom fighters.
“We do not target innocent civilians, especially women and children. This is not the teachings of the holy Koran,” Mama said, although he admitted responsibility for the roadside bombing of a military truck in Maguindanao province just recently.
Authorities have linked the rebel group to the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiya and al-Qaeda, including a rag-tag army of militants fighting for the Islamization of Mindanao. The military said Mama’s group is coddling Malaysian bomber Zulkifli bin Hir, tagged as aming those who was behind the 2002 Bali bombings.
Mama denied reports linking his group to the bombings in Cagayan de Oro City and Cotabato City and others areas in central Mindanao. He said the military and police authorities should shed light on how these bombs managed to pass through tight security checkpoints.
Security forces continue to hunt down Mama’s group, blamed by the army for the string of ambuscades on military in the South.
“The BIFF is behind many atrocities and bombings and the operation is going on to neutralize this group and so are other lawless groups behind similar attacks,” Col. Dickson Hermoso, a spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division, said in a separate interview.
Ameril Umra Kato
The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement is founded by Ameril Umra Kato, who was a former senior rebel leader in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group now negotiating peace with Manila.
Kato, accused by authorities as behind the series of deadly attacks in Mindanao in 2008, was disowned by the MILF after he split with the rebel group and formed his own group.
He also threatened to disrupt the peace talks between the MILF and the Aquino government and pursue an independent Muslim state in Mindanao, home to some four million Muslims in a region of about 18 million mostly Christian inhabitants.
Kato had led rebel forces in attacking civilian targets after peace negotiators failed to sign a Muslim homeland in 2008. The Supreme Court declared the accord unconstitutional.
Because of the attacks, police and military authorities have launched an operation to capture him, but Katao managed to elude arrest by hiding inside MILF areas.
Kato has repeatedly criticized the MILF chieftain Murad Ebrahim for abandoning their struggle for independence and betraying the MILF when he agreed to a secret meeting called by President Aquino in Japan in August 2011.
“Murad corrupted the rights of the Bangsamoro people,” Kato said, adding the MILF chieftain should have consulted his leaders before meeting with Aquino.
Kato has suffered a stroke in 2011, but his condition remains unknown, although there were reports that a new commander - Mohidin Animbang – has taken over the command of the rebel group, whose members were mostly former fighters of the MILF and members of the rival Moro National Liberation Front.
Exclusive photographs of rebel spokesman Abu Misry Mama and members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement during a clandestine interview by the Mindanao Examiner Regional Newspaper in southern Philippines. The rebel group has denied involvements in the spate of deadly bombings in the restive region. And Cotabato City police chief, Senior Superintendent Rolen Balquin, shows a facial composite of two suspected bombers. (Photos by Mark Navales)
http://mindanaoexaminer.blogspot.com/2013/08/we-are-not-behind-mindanao-bombings-biff.html
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