Documents, photos seized at MILF base unveil terror plans
Documents, photos seized at MILF base unveil terror plans
Froilan Gallardo, Associated Press, Pikit, Philippines
Government troops seized boxes of documents on Sunday in the house of a Moro separatist leader in the southern Philippines, including manuals on assassination, ambush and bombing techniques, military officials said.
Pictures of rifle-clad children being trained as Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas also were found in the house, which allegedly was the command post of MILF chairman Hashim Salamat in a sprawling rebel lair that has been captured in a weeklong military offensive, the officials said.
"It means they're training terrorists," army Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga told reporters. "They're training even child combatants."
With past police and military intelligence reports linking the MILF to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, the military will examine the seized documents for evidence of such a connection, army spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando said.
The abandoned building and three nearby huts apparently used as Muslim prayer areas were in a heavily fortified compound that was ringed by deep trenches and concrete fence with barbed wire and shielded from the air and ground by banana and coconut trees.
The area is in the so-called Buliok complex in a vast, marshy boundary straddling the southern provinces of North Cotabato and Maguindanao, which the military said it captured late last week in a major offensive involving thousands of soldiers and marines.
Armed forces spokesman Col. Essel Soriano said 157 rebels, five soldiers and one government militiaman were killed in the fighting. Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu claimed only 40 guerrillas were killed, including 35 on Thursday in a clash in Sultan Kudarat province's Tinumiges village in the single biggest guerrilla loss in recent memory. Military deaths and injuries are now "by the hundreds," Kabalu claimed.
Neither count could be independently confirmed.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose administration is working to resume Malaysian-brokered peace talks with the rebels, last week ordered the offensive on Buliok, stressing it was not directed against the MILF but against criminals and outlaws who have allegedly taken refuge in MILF areas -- including those from the Pentagon, a notorious kidnap gang on a U.S. terrorist list.
The rebels, who have been waging a bloody separatist war in the country's poor south, deny the claims, saying the offensive is aimed at pressuring them into accepting a peace deal.
Kabalu denied that Salamat maintained a house or command post in Buliok and added the military may have found a Muslim prayer center. The rebel documents were "planted" by military officials to justify the military assaults, which were actually a violation of a cease-fire agreement, he said.
"This is a psychological, propaganda operation by the military," Kabalu told The Associated Press by telephone. "If we abandon an area, do you think we would leave any delicate documents there?"
He acknowledged many MILF guerrillas abandoned their strongholds in Buliok because of the overwhelming military combat forces.
"We're natives there and we have a mastery of the terrain," he said. "We've just maneuvered out to avoid the tanks and planes, but we're just around running and watching."
The fighting began last Tuesday with a government assault on the Pikit area in North Cotabato province, about 920 kilometers (575 miles) southeast of Manila. About 51,000 people have fled their homes. Four children have died of various illnesses in evacuation centers, officials said.