Posted on 05/04/2003 8:35:54 AM PDT by miltonim
Philippine Rebels Attack Town, at Least 22 Dead
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed in the southern Philippines on Sunday as security forces fought a band of about 70 suspected Muslim guerrillas who stormed a remote town, officials said. The military was able to recover most of the 13 civilians taken hostage by the secessionists in an early Sunday morning raid, including the town mayor's wife and son.
Initial reports indicated at least 20 were kidnapped, but the number was later revised down to 13.
Fleeing pursuing troops, the rebels withdrew into the forest taking four captives with them, officials said.
Lieutenant General Daniel Lucero, chief public information officer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said the town of Siocon on Mindanao island, about 500 miles south of Manila, was now under the control of government forces.
Lucero told reporters in Manila there were eight soldiers and 15 civilians wounded. Two soldiers, six policemen, eight civilians and six guerrillas were among the 22 killed.
"There were many civilian casualties because it was the eve of the fiesta," a senior military official who asked not to be named told reporters in the southern city of Zamboanga.
The rebels attacked a town hall, a public market and a hospital around 2 a.m. local time on Sunday.
Lucero said the office of the mayor was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade; the public market was partially damaged; and three houses were torched in the attack.
"Every one of us ducked while bullets were fired everywhere. Then suddenly, a mortar landed near where we were hiding. It hit us including my poor grandson," said 67-year-old Herminihilda Cudoy, as she soothed the boy, grimacing in pain.
Cudoy and her one-year-old grandson were airlifted by a military helicopter to a hospital in Zamboanga for treatment.
The military said it believed the guerrillas included men from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the biggest of several Muslim rebel groups in the south; the Abu Sayyaf which is listed as a foreign terrorist group by Washington with suspected links to the al Qaeda network; and some other renegades.
The Abu Sayyaf claims to be fighting for a separate Islamic state in the south of the largely Roman Catholic country, but pursues kidnap-for-ransom as its main activity.
Despite efforts to start peace talks with the MILF, clashes between the rebels and the soldiers have intensified since troops overran a key guerrilla stronghold in February.
The MILF has been implicated by police and the military in an April 2 attack in Davao city that killed 16 people and a bombing at the city's airport a month earlier that killed 22 people. The rebels denied involvement.
And they're who the .45 ACP round was designed to kill. Not wound and allow to continue the attack, but kill.
Thank you, Frankford Arsenal.
Yes they were, but I think that goes way back in time. I am not sure, but maybe these were the ones I heard rumors about. The rumor I heard, was that the Americans killed a lot of them, and buried them in pig skins, and let the rest go, to tell their home boys what was happening. It stopped a lot of the violence, if this is true.
No, I do not, but I will ask some of my Philippine friends if they know.
Filipinos of which northern mountains?
Eric, here is where the name Huks came from, a Tagalog phrase. Texas, just from looking at it from the outside, it appears it is possible that they were not the kind who had no time for government, as much as they just liked communism, if indeed this article is true.
Actually, NPA, New People's Army.
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