Three Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) were killed, two soldiers and at least eight 10 civilians were slightly hurt when renegade Moro rebels clashed with government troops in Maguindanao’s marshland town Monday dawn, the Army here said.
Colonel Dickson Hermoso, speaking for the 6th Infantry Division, said the injured members of the 45th Infantry Battalion are now confined at the 6th ID’s
The clash started at past midnight when a band of about 50 BIFF guerrillas tried to over-run two Army detachments in Shariff Saydona and Datu Piang towns in Maguindanao, triggering hours of exchange of bullets.
“Our troops repulsed the BIFF attempts to take over our detachments stationed in villages they previously occupied,” Hermoso said in a radio interview.
The fatalities were taken by the BIFF as they retreated following about two hours of firefight, Hermoso said, quoting villagers.
Hermoso admitted civilians from Barangay Ganta have fled to safer grounds following the BIFF harassment.
He added that the reported wounded civilians are being verified by government troops on the ground.
In a phone interview, BIFF spokesperson Abu Misry Mama claimed responsibility for the dawn attacks but stressed it was meant to pressure the military to free one of its members the soldiers allegedly abducted two weeks ago in nearby Datu Unsay town.
The twin attacks came hours after government forces found and properly defused an improvised explosive device fashioned from 81 mm mortar with mobile phone as triggering device left by suspected BIFF at a roadside near an Army base in Barangay Lower Salbu, Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao.
Hermoso said the military has been anticipating BIFF atrocities during the fasting month which add up to Muslim civilians' difficulties since they fast from sunrise to sunset.
”They resorted to absurd propaganda out to discredit the military in Maguindanao,” Hermoso said, citing pronouncement made by BIFF spokesperson that the attacks on a banana plantation in North Cotabato was triggered by the alleged abduction of a father-son tandem.
Hermoso denied the claim of BIFF that the Army seized two persons in Datu Unsay, Maguindanao.
”The BIFF is using the radio and the social media for its propaganda. These are baseless allegations,” he said.
Hermoso said sporadic skirmishes followed after the fierce firefight that ended at past 5 a.m.
“We remained on alert, we anticipate retaliatory or diversionary attacks from BIFF,” Hermoso said.
The displaced families are now being attended to by the local government units and the Humanitarian Emergency Action and Response Team (HEART), a humanitarian agency of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=664586
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