MILF says military provoked Basilan clash

MANILA, Philippines—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Friday accused the military of triggering Tuesday’s clash in Basilan where 19 elite soldiers died.

The MILF in a statement said that the area in Al-Barka town where about 40 Special Forces of the Philippine Army had a 10-hour gunbattle with Moro rebels is well within the MILF area.

“We were the ones attacked and the Special Forces, who are highly-trained, were in full battle gear and their mission was to kill as many MILF forces including Commander Dan Laksaw Asnawi,” an MILF commander, who declined to be named, said.

“We were only very lucky, because we have received an A-1 intelligence report earlier from our agent in the military that they are going to attack us that very early morning. So we prepared ourselves,” the rebel official said.

The attacks came two days after MILF forces killed 19 soldiers on the remote southern island of Basilan in one of the worst outbreaks of violence between the two sides in years.

The MILF has said six of its own fighters were killed in that clash.

The fresh fighting has further complicated efforts to end one of Asia’s longest insurgencies, with the MILF and the military accusing each other of breaking a ceasefire in place to promote peace talks.

The 12,000-strong MILF has waged a rebellion since the 1970s for an independent Islamic state or autonomous-rule in the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines.

The rebellion has left about 150,000 people dead, with most of the deaths coming in the 1970s when an all-out war raged.

Although the two sides signed a truce in 2003 that paved the way for peace talks, the ceasefire is frequently marred by clashes across the vast Mindanao region, which Muslims claim as their ancestral homeland.

This week’s clashes have been the most deadly since 2008, when 400 people were killed after two rebel commanders led attacks on a series of mainly Christian-populated villages. With Agence France-Presse