As fighting between soldiers and rebels opposed to a peace deal raged in central Mindanao, a bomb exploded in a bus terminal in the town of
Two civilians, an
8-year-old girl and a pregnant woman, were hurt in the incident, the Mindanao
Human Rights Action Center said. The victims were immediately brought to the
nearest clinic for treatment.
Abu Misry Mama,
spokesman of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) that is now caught
in intense fighting with soldiers, denied that they planted and detonated the
bomb. "We do not use bombs and we do not attack civilians. These civilians
are our relatives. We will not hurt them," Mama said.
The military
claimed it had killed 17 BIFF members in 3 days of fighting.
"We were
able to neutralize 17 rebels while reports are coming in about more casualties.
But this has yet to be confirmed," said Col Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of
the military's 6th Infantry Division.
More than 1,500
troops are involved in the offensive against the BIFF in
remote farming areas of central Mindanao ,
Hermoso said.
The assault was
launched on Monday, January 27, two days after the successful end of
negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) aimed at ending a decades-long insurgency that has killed tens of
thousands.
Opposed
to peace deal
The BIFF is a
small group of militants opposed to the peace effort, which has carried out
many deadly attacks in recent years in a bid to derail the peace process.
"Putting an
end to the BIFF armed challenge will be a big help to the autonomous Muslim
political entity that will be created by the peace agreement," Hermoso
told AFP.
He said small
arms skirmishes were continuing on Tuesday in three farming villages on the
edge of a marsh near the town of Datu Piang ,
about 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of Manila
Hermoso said the
BIFF had about 120 "hardcore" members who were backed up by scores of
relatives and members of other armed groups opposed to the peace talks.
He said the
soldiers were carrying out "law enforcement operations" to capture 25
of the militants, who had been charged with a string of criminal cases,
including kidnapping, murder and extortion of civilians.
Betrayal
The MILF has been
leading a rebellion since the 1970s aimed at winning independence or autonomy
for the country's Muslim minority in the southern region of Mindanao ,
which they regard as their ancestral homeland.
But as the group
sought a peace accord with the government, the BIFF broke away with its leader
accusing the main Muslim rebel group of betraying Muslims' quest for
independence.
After 18 years of
negotiations, the MILF and the government agreed on Saturday, January 25, to
the final parts of a planned peace accord aimed at creating a Muslim autonomous
region.
The accord is
expected to be formally signed before the end of March.
President Benigno
Aquino III hopes to fully implement the peace plan before he steps down in the
middle of 2016, but there are many legal, political and military obstacles that
still need to be overcome.
One of those is
the opposition of small splinter groups, such as the BIFF.
In 2008, it
launched an attack on mainly Christian towns in the south, leading to the
deaths of more than 400 people and displacing 750,000 others.
http://www.rappler.com/nation/49065-fighting-blast-maguindanao
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