At least 3 army soldiers were injured in fierce clashes that
erupted Tuesday between security forces and radical jihadists in the province of Maguindanao
in the restive Muslim autonomous region in southern Philippines
The fighting was so fierce in Shariff Saydona Mustapha town
that the 6th Infantry Division radioed the air force for a pair of
MG-520 attack helicopters to support ground troops fighting the Bangsamoro
Islamic Freedom Fighters.
It described the clashes as “heavy” and it started at dawn
and continued until day time in the village
of Pamalian
The fighting erupted a day after President Rodrigo Duterte
vowed to grant wider autonomy to Muslims in the troubled region during a
national address on the state of the nation.
The army tagged an extremist rebel leader, Karalian, as
behind the attack on the soldiers. And the Major General Edmundo Pangilinan,
the regional army commander, has called on Karalian to “voluntarily surrender
to the government to avoid further bloodshed.”
“It would be best that they surrender so that they can avoid
more of the followers from getting killed and would also prevent more
displacement from taking place,” Pangilinan said.
There were no reports of enemy casualties, but many of the
BIFF members were former or still members of the larger Moro Islamic Liberation
Front which signed an interim peace deal with Manila
Both the BIFF and MILF were accused in the brutal killings
of 44 police commandos in Maguindanao’s Mamasapano town during a clandestine
operation called Oplan Exodus that targeted a Malaysian bomber, Zulkifli
Abdhir, who was coddled by the two groups in the remote Tukanalipao village.
http://mindanaoexaminer.com/3-soldiers-wounded-in-fierce-clashes-with-jihadists/
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