Police probe links of MILF attacks to Iraq

By BONG GARCIA JR.
TODAY Correspondent

ZAMBOANGA CITY - The police are conducting a thorough investigation to determine whether the separate attacks staged last Sunday by heavily armed men believed to be Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels mark the start of the sympathy attacks to the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

The incident happened as the Western Mindanao police command headed by Chief Supt. Simeon Dizon Jr. has activated a contingency battalion to deal with incidents of sympathy attacks in the region.

Three people, including a barangay captain, were instantly killed in the separate attacks that took place within 30 minutes of each other, the police reported on Tuesday.

The first attack took place around 7 p.m. Sunday in sitio Busay, barangay Basak, Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte. The raid resulted in the death of barangay captain Gregorio Labacana Cruz, 50, and Elmer Cuevas, 35, a farmer.

“An undetermined number of heavily armed men believed to be MILF rebels indiscriminately fired at the residents in the area [sitio Busay] with the use of high-powered firearms,” the report stated.

After the first attack, the rebels fled and proceeded to barangay Basak proper and also indiscriminately fired at the residents in the area around 7:30 p.m. of the same night. The attack led to the killing of a 40-year-old farmer, Teofilo Malasarte.

The report said that the rebels fled after the attacks.

The rebels are believed to be among the MILF guerrillas operating in the Triple SB area that covers the coastal towns of Sibuco, Sirawai, Siocon and Baliguian in Zamboanga del Norte.

The separate attacks occurred after the police has received separate reports that armed men believed to be rebels have landed in the coastal town of Tungawan and Ipil in the nearby province of Zamboanga Sibugay.

Also, another group of MILF rebels was monitored to have landed in the coastal area of Midsalip, Zamboanga del Sur.

The rebels reportedly came from Central Mindanao.

However, the MILF has denied that they would launch “sympathy attacks” to the US-led war on Iraq but acknowledged that they are on “active defense posture” by launching attacks all over Mindanao in response to the military offensive against them.

“We have no plans about any sympathy attacks because our problem is way ahead from that of Iraq,” MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told Today.

He clarified that the rebels would only target military installations. He denied that MILF guerrillas staged Sunday’s attacks in Sibuco, Zamboanga.

So far, only the New People’s Army (NPA) has announced that it would stage attacks in sympathy with the Iraqi people.

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