COTABATO CITY – Military air strikes in villages in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao killed one person and wounded four other civilians, including a 12-year-old girl, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the military reported that it indeed conducted the attacks but claimed they were targeting MILF rebels in the villages of Liyab, Daladab and Bagumbong. Col. Marlou Salazar, 601st Brigade commander, said 10 rebels were killed or wounded and that ground troops later recovered firearms and ammunition.

Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief negotiator, identified the civilian fatality as Sindak Esmail, 30. The wounded – Haja Bai Masla Sangkala, 45; Hadja Apisa Ibrahim, 47; Rudy Kamsa, 23; and the girl, whose identity the Inquirer has withheld as an editorial policy on minors – were brought to a medical facility in nearby Datu Piang town.

“It’s validated. The military has been indiscriminately bombing Muslim-populated areas,” Iqbal said.

In September, another military attack reportedly killed six people, including a teenage mother and several children.

Deliberate?

Iqbal said the military could be deliberately targeting civilians because of the losses it suffered in past skirmishes in Maguindanao.

“The government is killing us. We are calling on authorities and international communities to look into these atrocities against civilians and to give justice to the victims,” Abdul Kamsa, a relative of one of the victims, said.

Iqbal said that soldiers shot and killed three civilians fleeing the violence on the Maguindanao-North Cotabato border. Another was wounded in a separate attack, he said.

Senior Insp. Renante Cabico, police chief of Midsayap, North Cotabato, confirmed that on Nov. 13, three civilians died in the crossfire between rebels and soldiers.

A 17-year old girl was also wounded in the other attack, he said.

Maj. Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command (Eastmincom), said that if some people were killed in the air raid, he was sure they were MILF rebels.

‘Observed mission’

“With all the firepower recovered from the site, I don’t think civilians will venture huddling with any lawless group. One more thing, the bomb run conducted was ‘observed mission,’ meaning troops on the ground has target visibility,” Cabangbang said.

Salazar said that among those recovered from the scene were a 30 cal. machinegun, a rocket-propelled grenade; a 60-millimeter mortar and assorted rifles.

In Basilan, the military also rained bombs near an area in Maluso town, where MILF rebels were seen massing up on Wednesday morning.

Commodore Alexander Pama, head of the Naval Forces Western Mindanao, told reporters that the bombing sortie was meant to prevent the rebels from attacking communities in Maluso.

But Sattar Alih, deputy commander of the 114th Based Command in the province, denied planning attacks. “We are just a having our break and we wanted to rest in our own farms here in Maluso,” he told the Inquirer by phone.

But Pama said the presence of fully armed rebels had triggered panic among residents, who fled to safe areas.

Brig. Gen. Muhammad Nur Askalani, chief of the government’s ad hoc joint action group, supported Alih’s statement.

More evacuees

Bullets were not the only ones killing civilians in Maguindanao, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Dr. Robert Paterson, an ICRC medical delegate in the Philippines, said three civilians died of diseases at evacuation centers in Datu Piang town. He did not say who the victims were or when they had died except that they were from Libutan and Mamasapano.

Paterson said evacuees had increasingly crammed the centers, making them vulnerable to illnesses. From 55,000 in late October, the number rose to 66,000 as the military continued its punitive actions against some MILF members.

Gov. Zaldy Uy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said that only the return of the MILF and the government to the negotiating table could end the violence in Maguindanao and other parts of the region.

Bishops-ulama meet

In Jolo, Sulu, police arrested several protesters a day before the Bishops-Ulama Conference (BUC) met Wednesday to convince the government and the MILF to resume peace talks. The protesters accused the BUC of being a government “rubber stamp.”

Khaled Musa, deputy chair of the MILF committee on information, said in a statement that the assembly was a “mere tool” to delay the real peace process. He said the government was not poised to follow the assembly's findings and recommendations.

Ambassador Alistair McDonald of the Council of the European Union said the urgent call of the day was for Manila and the MILF peace panels to talk again.

“The European Union believes strongly that the conflict in Mindanao can only be resolved through dialogue and calls upon all concerned to show restraint and genuine respect for the rule of law,” McDonald said in a statement. Jeoffrey Maitem, Julie Alipala, Charlie Señase, Edwin Fernandez and Ed General, Inquirer Mindanao