13 killed in ambush; Moro rebels blamed
CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines - About 20 heavily armed Muslim rebels ambushed a truck transporting civilians in the southern Philippines and killed 13 people, including three women and a 2-year-old boy, military officials said yesterday. Fourteen others were wounded.
Most of those killed were Christians, Maj. Johnny Macanas said.
The truck, owned by Maranao Planters Inc., was carrying company workers and their families when it was ambushed Saturday afternoon, Macanas said.
He said survivors identified the attackers as members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The rebels apparently had escaped from recent government assaults on nearby camps, including Camp Abubakar, the guerrilla headquarters, Macanas said.
Government troops have seized most of the rebel group's camps since launching an offensive in March.
Yesterday, the military launched air strikes around Abubakar after about 100 rebels were seen moving toward the camp, the military said. No casualties were reported.
Moro Islamic Liberation Front spokesman Eid Kabalu denied the rebels were responsible for Saturday's attack and called the accusation "black propaganda."
The attack, in a remote village in Balabagan in Lanao del Sur province, was the second massacre in the province in a week blamed on the rebel group.
In nearby North Cotabato province, about 100 Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels attacked two Christian-dominated villages in Midsayap before dawn yesterday, the military said. Two civilians were wounded and two rebels were killed in a resulting two-hour clash between the attackers and militiamen, local army spokesman Capt. Noel Detoyato said.
Kabalu confirmed the attack, but said the rebels had targeted military outposts, not civilians.
The military operations have triggered the worst fighting in Mindanao since the height of the Muslim insurgency in the 1970s.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is the larger of two groups fighting for an independent Islamic state in the impoverished southern Philippines. The smaller and more extreme Abu Sayyaf is holding about 31 hostages, including about a dozen foreigners, on Jolo Island at the country's southern tip.