RP planes bomb main rebel base: Guerrillas

RP planes bomb main rebel base: Guerrillas

MANILA (Reuters): Philippine warplanes on Sunday bombed the biggest Moslem rebel base on the southern island of Mindanao in what could be the start of a fullscale military assault, a guerrilla officer said.

"Since 8:15 this morning, OV-10s (government bomber planes) have dropped eight bombs inside our camp," spokesman Eid Kabalu of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said by phone from an undisclosed rebel base in Mindanao.

Kabalu, head of an MILF panel supervising a tattered ceasefire accord with Manila, said the bombs hit abandoned houses inside the sprawling camp of Abubakre and there were no casualties.

He said bomber planes and helicopter gunships had been attacking the camp for several days but no one had been killed or wounded.

"They have not launched any ground attack but that is the military's style. The air bombardment comes first and then their ground forces move in for a major offensive," Kabalu said.

Army spokesman Capt. Noel Detoyato said he had no information on any bombardment. But he added the military had launched rocket and cannon fire on MILF positions in recent days to counter rebel mortar shelling of government forces entrenched outside the camp.

"Our policy is to stay put. We have no orders to attack," Detoyato said.

The weeks-long fighting in Mindanao, 800 km south of Manila, has disrupted peace talks aimed at settling a 28-year separatist war and posed the biggest security challenge to President Joseph Estrada in his more than two years in office.

Estrada's problems have been compounded by a 71-day hostage saga on Jolo island, near Mindanao, where the smaller but more radical Abu Sayyaf guerrillas are holding 20 mostly foreign captives.

Military spokesmen said over 200 soldiers and more than 300 rebels had died in the Mindanao fighting since mid-March and that government forces had overrun dozens of rebel camps, leaving Abubakre as the only major MILF base still untouched.

Sprawling over thousands of hectares, Abubakre is the MILF's military headquarters and is defended by thousands of rebels armed with weapons bought in Afghanistan, rebel spokesmen say.

Until the beginning of this year, the government has allowed the MILF to maintain dozens of camps around Mindanao but started dismantling them one by one since March, saying the rebels were using them to launch strikes on populated centers.

Armed forces chief Gen. Angelo Reyes said the rebels' presence in Abubakre was unacceptable but any decision to take it would have to come from President Estrada.

Church and business leaders have called for a ceasefire, saying the Mindanao fighting was further damaging investor confidence in the already listless economy. Estrada said he would order a halt in military attacks only if the MILF renounced its secessionist aim and stopped attacking civilian targets.

Estrada had set June 30 as a deadline for the MILF to accept his conditions but presidential spokesman Ricardo Puno said last Saturday the government would carry on negotiations despite the lapse of the deadline.

Kabalu said the MILF had proposed new talks for July 29 but that Manila had not responded.