Philippine troops capture part of rebel headquarters
Philippine troops capture part of rebel headquarters
COTABATO, Philippines (Agencies): Government troops captured parts of the sprawling headquarters of the biggest Muslim separatist group in the Philippines on Tuesday, and said they could take the complex in two days.
"The attack on Camp Abubakar will continue as there are no reports to halt the offensive," regional military chief Maj. Gen. Gregorio Camiling said after the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ignored a government deadline for a peace accord.
The government forces were just six kilometers from the heart of the rebels' base which covers 10,000-hectares, making it several times bigger than Singapore island.
The advance marked the military's deepest incursion into the MILF heartland, putting the facilities and armory within mortar range.
Camiling allowed journalists to see the two Camp Abubakar outposts captured from the MILF after killing 11 rebel fighters.
A military spokesman said they could capture Camp Abubakar, near this southern city, in two days if they launched an all-out assault.
"It can be taken in two days considering that, one, the MILF are weakened and two, they ran out of ammunition and three, their morale is low," local army spokesman Capt. Noel Detoyato said.
Abubakar is the last remaining stronghold of the MILF after more than two months of government assaults on rebel camps and outposts.
Since April, the military has overrun about 50 camps and outposts of the MILF in the southern Philippines but held back from a major attack on Camp Abubakar, saying it was a political decision to be made by President Joseph Estrada.
Estrada seemed to have given the go-ahead on Monday after the rebels refused to accept his deadline to forge a peace agreement and abandon their campaign for a separate Islamic state.
"I gave a deadline of June 30 and the deadline has already expired. So there will be continued military operations," Estrada said.
MG-520 helicopters and OV-10 attack planes could be seen Tuesday carrying out airstrikes on parts of Camp Abubakar.
But MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said his forces were "committed to defend their position."
"They're out to pulverize us but we will preserve Abubakar at all costs. The biggest war is yet to come," he said. Ten Marines were wounded Tuesday in an MILF attack just outside Abubakar, the military said.
Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said the military's objective was to "destroy (MILF) installations and degrade the military capability of the MILF as soon as possible."
Separately, Islamic rebels holding 20 mostly foreign hostages denied on Tuesday that they had taken captive 13 Christian preachers who had gone to visit their camp and said the evangelists were with them "for 44 days of fasting".
The fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf guerrillas issued the statement amid growing fears that the missionaries, who trekked through rugged hills into the rebel lair on Saturday to pray for the hostages, had themselves been detained.
On Sunday, four suspected rebels seized a German reporter for Der Spiegel news magazine, further complicating a 10-week hostage crisis that has brought international embarrassment to Estrada's embattled government.
Police said reporter Andreas Lorenz was seen on Monday hiking with his captors through the forests of Patikul hills just outside Jolo town.
The hostages -- including eight Malaysians, three Germans, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, two Filipinos and a Lebanese -- were abducted from the Sipadan island diving resort near Malaysia on April 23 and brought to Jolo, 960 km south of Manila.
The Abu Sayyaf is one of two groups fighting for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country.