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.