Philippines: Battle rages between govt troops, Islamic rebels in Maguindanao | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Philippines: Battle rages between govt troops, Islamic rebels in Maguindanao | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent
Edwin Espejo, Aug 06, 2012

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, PHILIPPINES – Government troops and members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) are still locked in pitched battles in several towns of Maguindanao leaving the national highway that connects Cotabato City and General Santos City impassable.

The fighting began Sunday when BIFF guerrillas began harassing military detachments in the towns of Datu Unsay, Datu Saudi, Ampatuan and Guindolongan.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from both sides but Col. Prudencio Asto, spokesman of the Philippine Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, said armed elements believed to be loyalists of renegade Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) commander Umra Kato simultaneously attacked military outposts in the said towns at around midnight Sunday.

Intermittent exchange of gunfire continued until Monday morning and later spilled over in the capital town of Shariff Aguak.

The military has sealed off portions of the said highway leaving tens of motorists stranded.
Kato is a former high ranking official of the MILF who broke away from the main rebel group to form the BIFF after refusing to answer for initiating the 2008 atrocities that killed tens of combatants from both sides and scores of civilians.  Tens of thousands of residents throughout Maguindanao and Lanao del Norte also fled their homes during the height of the fighting.

MILF spokesman Von Al-Haq confirmed Kato’s BIFF was behind the latest attacks.
It also marked the 4^th anniversary of Kato’s 2008 rebellion which was caused by the Supreme Court declaration of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) as unconstitutional.

The MOA-AD was supposed to be a landmark document agreed upon by the peace negotiating panels from both the Government of the Philippines and the MILF (GPH-MILF).  Before it could be initialed, however, the Supreme Court declared it as unconstitutional.

In August that year, Kato, along with Abdullah Macapaar, alias Kumander Bravo, led hundreds of MILF rebels in a coordinated attack which spanned across the mainland Mindanao provinces of Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao, Sarangani and Davao Oriental.  MILF rebels in Basilan and Sulu also briefly joined the guerilla offensives.

The 2008 rebel offensives were the heaviest since the end of 2000 when former President Joseph Estrada ordered an all-out attack against rebel strongholds throughout Mindanao.
At that time, a formal ceasefire between the Philippine government and the MILF was already in place.

Both Kato and Kumander Bravo were later sanctioned by the MILF for their role in the outbreak of hostilities.

Kato however ignored the sanction and formed his own breakaway group.  Bravo has remained with the MILF, though

The BIFF is believed to have at least 1,500 fully armed regulars.