Army-BIFF clash mars breakthrough in GPH-MILF talks

From GMA News (Jan 27): Army-BIFF clash mars breakthrough in GPH-MILF talks

Government troops clashed with members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) on Saturday, the day the government announced it has signed the last annex of a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

A Philippine News Agency (PNA) report on Monday said the BIFF have consolidated its forces and set off an explosive device in North Cotabato last Saturday after the annex was signed, considered as a major breakthrough in the GPH-MILF years-long on-and-off negotiations.

The last annex tackles the decommissioning of the armed wing of the MILF.

“Another band of guerillas [was] seen massing in the borders of Pikit, North Cotabato and the towns of Saydona Mustapha, Datu Piang and Sultan sa Barongis in Maguindanao,” Col. Dickson Hermoso of the 6th Infantry Division said in the PNA report.

“We have been trying to bend our tolerance but the bandits continue its lawlessness, we cannot allow this to happen,” he added.

Last Saturday, Hermoso said BIFF forces set off an improvised bomb in Barangay Ulandang, Midsayap, after a convoy of Army soldiers passed by. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

As “shelling” operations commence on Sunday at Pikit, North Cotabato, residents in the area and nearby villages fled their homes after the local government imposed forced evacuation.

“We have no actual number of evacuees but we are asking them to leave their homes due to mortar shelling,” said Tahira Kalantungan, chair of the Pikit municipal disaster risk reduction and management council.

The PNA report said more troops from the 7th Infantry Battalion based in Pikit town moved to the North Cotabato-Maguindanao border as blocking force, while the Army’s 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade was deployed in the towns of Datu Piang, Shariff Saydona and Sultan sa Barongis in Maguindanao.

The MILF has already downplayed the threat from other armed groups in Mindanao.

According to a Reuters report, the four-decade battle in Mindanao has claimed more than 120,000 lives and millions more displaced.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/345738/news/regions/army-biff-clash-mars-breakthrough-in-gph-milf-talks