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The Philippine military said Wednesday March 24 that its troops have killed at least 16 Muslim rebels aligned with the Islamic State group in a series of clashes over the past week that have displaced thousands of villagers in a southern province.
The heaviest fighting began on March 17 and lasted four days in the city of Datu Saudi Ampatuan in Maguindanao province, said regional military spokesman Lt. Col. John Paul Baldomar.
He said the troops killed 14 terrorists, both from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and Dawlah Islamiyah, and wounded 25 others.
Baldomar said the clashes, which injured three soldiers, broke out after terrorists threatened to attack a village and a security post. The troops recovered seven homemade explosives and two firearms from the scene of the clashes.
During the height of the fighting, some 5,700 families had to flee to safety, the military said, noting that fighting there had lessened.
More clashes broke out on Monday, March 22, when a smaller group of terrorists attacked a military post in a village in the town of Shariff Aguak, also in Maguindanao. The gunmen withdrew after a brief exchange of gunfire that left a bandit dead, military officials said.
Another clash took place on Tuesday, March 23, in the nearby town of Guindulungan when troops fought off terrorists who entered a rural village and alarmed residents. The clashes left one bandit dead, military officials said.
Army Colonel Pedro Balisi thanked villagers and city officials from the predominantly Muslim province for reporting the presence of the gunmen.
“With your help, we can effectively address the threat from these violent extremist groups,” he said.
The outbreaks of fighting in Maguindanao underscore the remaining threats to the relative tranquility fostered by a 2014 peace accord signed by the government and the largest armed group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Moro rebels are now supporting government forces in the fight against smaller bands of Islamic terrorists.
Many of the terrorists broke away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and sporadic attacks continued after the main rebel group Moro ended decades of separatist insurrection and negotiated an autonomy agreement for the Muslim minority in the south of the largely Catholic nation. . (AP)
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