COTABATO, Philippines—An 8-year-old girl and three men, one with his hands bound, were among those killed in a botched antiterror police operation in the Philippines last weekend, a local official said on Saturday.
Mamasapano town Mayor Benzar Ampatuan said residents told him police had tied the man up to keep him from tipping off their targets ahead of the predawn raid in which 44 Special Action Force commandos died in one of the Philippine National Police’s bloodiest days in recent years.
A local farmer’s daughter and two other men were also found dead in their homes after the fighting, Ampatuan said, the first report of civilian casualties in the bloodbath.
“Their wives said they were hit in the crossfire,” he told Agence France-Presse, adding that five other residents of the corn-farming region were also wounded.
The police officers were killed as they hunted the man blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia, in which 202 people died.
Filipino officials said Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan,” was killed by the raiders, a claim that has yet to be independently confirmed. A second target, Filipino militant Abdul Basit Usman, escaped.