MILF forces attack army patrol in South

From the Mindanao Examiner (Apr 18, 2022): MILF forces attack army patrol in South

Moro Islamic Liberation Front forces attacked a group of patrolling soldiers and sparked a gun fight in Maguindanao province, a stronghold of the former rebel group which signed a peace deal with Manila in March 2014.

Members of the 33rd Infantry Battalion were patrolling the village of Datu Kilay in Shariff Saydona Mustapha town over the weekend when MILF forces under Ustadz Guiahudin Monib attacked them.

Monib, who belonged to the 105th Base Command, was killed in the clash, according to reports.

The MILF, under Murad Ebrahim, signed a peace accord with the government and eventually appointed as governor of the Muslim autonomous region. But despite the peace deal, many members of the MILF are still armed and even expanded their territories in the South that led to occasional clashes with security forces.

Just last month, government troops clashed with pro-ISIS militants and recovered a cache of weapons and at least five kilos of crystal meth from the hideout of the Dawlah Islamiya fighters in Maguing town in the neighboring province of Lanao del Sur.

Army Lt. Gen. Alfredo Rosario, Jr., chief of the Western Mindanao Command, said soldiers captured the terrorist camp in the village of Ilalag following fierce clashes since that killed at least three gunmen and one soldier.

The Moro Islamic Liberation, which signed a peace accord with Manila in 2014, said the fighting was between them and security forces and accused the military of attacking their members in Maguing town.

But Ebrahim said security forces clashed with MILF members and not Dawlah Islamiya as the military claimed. He said the regional government is making sure that the on-going ceasefire between the MILF and the Armed Forces of the Philippines will produce positive outcomes and provide permanent resolution to the conflict.

But Lt. Col. Palawan Miondas, a spokesman for the 103rd Infantry Brigade, said those killed in the fighting were terrorists and members of the Dawlah Islamya and the Maute Group which were also involved in the deadly siege of Marawi in May 23, 2017 that lasted five months. He said the terrorist lairs were also near an illegal camp of the MILF. “We are sure that those terrorists are members of the Dawlah Islamiya,” Miondas said.

The acronym of the group’ full Arabic name is al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham, translated as “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (or the Levant).”

The Western Mindanao Command maintained the gunmen were terrorists and that troops recovered a total of 22 improvised explosives, anti-personnel mines, and at least 45 assorted crew-served weapons and high-powered firearms, including three .50-caliber machine guns, one .30-caliber machine gun, two M60 machine guns, twelve M16 automatic rifles, one M653 rifle, one M4 Carbine rifle, one AR15 rifle, five M14 rifles, one M4 automatic rifle, six anti-tank grenade launchers, two M203 grenade launchers, six .50-caliber sniper rifles, one M1 Garand rifle, one Browning automatic rifle, one AK47 assault rifle and a shotgun, assorted ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, improvised rockets and ISIS flags, among others.

“Our troops averted and countered possible desperate attacks employed by the Dawlah Islamiya to inflict casualties not only to the armed forces but even the innocent civilians,” Rosario said.

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