The Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Tuesday said it would return the firearms and personal belongings of the police Special Action commandos killed in the clash with its fighters in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on January 25.
The pledge was contained in a letter from chief MILF negotiator Mohagher Iqbal in a letter addressed to Senator Grace Poe, chair of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, in which he also informed her that, while he had been appointed to represent the MILF to the hearings on the Mamasapano incident, he could not appear at Tuesday's hearing.
The letter was read at the start of the hearing by Rasid Ladiasan, head of the MILF's Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities.
In the letter, Iqbal said the MILF central committee had decided to return the weapons and other belongings of the slain SAF personnel in the spirit of its peace agreement with government and to underscore that "we never wanted that unfortunate incident ... to happen."
Iqbal noted that it was the first time since 2011 that fighting had erupted between the MILF and government forces.
The Mamasaspano clash was the offshoot of a SAF operation to get wanted Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias "Marwan," who was said to have been killed during the mission, and Filipino bomb expert Abdul Basit Usman.
The clash left 44 SAF commandos, 18 MILF fighters, and at least five civilians dead and given rise to bitter recriminations after it was confirmed that the operation was carried out without coordination with other police and military units and the Philippine National Police chain of command had been broken, this following the admission by Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II and acting PNP chief Leonardo Espina that they had been kept in the dark about the mission to get Marwan.
This has given rise to widespread suspicion that the mission had been personally supervised by resigned PNP chief Alan Purisima and President Benigno Aquino III.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/104755/milf-to-return-arms-other-belongings-of-slain-saf-commandos
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.