Soldiers, MILF troops in danger of clashing in Maguindanao – officials

DATU ABDULLAH SANGKI, Philippines – Government forces have been locked in a standoff with the 106th Base Command of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Sitio (sub-village) Imbornal in Barangay Kakal since last week, MILF and government sources said.

Commander Mastur Lintang of the MILF’s 106th base command said the situation became worse when the Mindanao joint task force of the government, which has been running after members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), fired artillery that nearly hit his house Friday evening.

“We are trying to communicate as we are on a verge of a misencounter,” Lintang told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Lintang said it was ironic that his group had become the subject of 105 howitzer shelling when he had helped government forces neutralize BIFF terrorists just last month in nearby Rajah Buayan town.

On Saturday, Lintang sent an emissary to Army Major General Edmundo Pangilinan, chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, who was in Rajah Buayan to attend a Municipal Peace and Order Council meeting and visited with Mayor Datu Zamzamin Ampatuan a historic site in Barangay Bakat where 19th century ruler Datu Anwaruddin Utto met in February 1901 with Governor-General Leonard Howard Taft, who was elected US President.

Lintang said his men helped quell some 200 BIFF men who had vowed to take the town under its control last February.

The MILF leader said the BIFF offensive in Rajah Buayan last month stemmed from suspicion, purportedly by Muhidin Salilama alias Kagui Karialam, that some local residents cooperated with the military in a previous operation on a suspected terrorist lair, in which his group helped in efforts to minimize the attack’s impact on civilians.

Pangilinan said the positioning of the government troopers since last week in Barangay Kakal, Datu Abdullah Sangki, was cleared with the Joint Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH).

Pangilinan said he had instructed Col. Melquiades Feliciano of the 601st Army Brigade to “double check and communicate” with the CCCH.

Feliciano said there appeared to be a “miscommunication” in a previous dialogue with the CCCH.

Residents had seen thousands of men being transported on February 7 from parts of Datu Saudi, Datu Salibo and Shariff Saydona Mustapha towns to hilly areas of Ampatuan and Talayan towns. The Philippine Daily Inquirer learned that the all-male exodus was triggered by orders from the MILF Central Committee that the areas of anti-BIFF government operation should be cleared of MILF members.

MILF sources said most of those transported were members of the 105th Base Command (BC) under Ustadz Zacaria Goma and the 118th BC under Ustadz Wahid Tundoc.

On the other hand, members of the 106th Officer-In-Charge BC Commander Yahya Hassan have been clustered in an area between Ampatuan and Datu Abdullah Sangki where composite government troopers of the Philippine Army and the Philippine Navy’s Marines have been locked in a dangerous standoff.

Army Brigadier-General Carlito Galvez, government CCCH head, declined to entertain a query from the Inquirer on the troops’ deployment to an MILF area in the Datu Abdullah Sangki town, during a chance meeting in Awang, Maguindanao on March 8.

Efforts to reach Galvez’s MILF CCCH counterpart Rashid Ladiasan by phone Saturday also proved futile.