A report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer cited a report to officials including Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. indicating Filipinos are among the Southeast Asians being lured to conflict zones in the Middle East. Some Islamic militants are home-grown, just like the Abu Sayyaf (in photo), who have links with al-Qaeda terrorists. (Photo from http://vkb.isvg.org/Wiki/Groups/Abu_Sayyaf_Group_(ASG)
Manila, Philippines | AFP | – A soldier was killed and three others wounded when Muslim rebels simultaneously attacked military detachments in two southern Philippine provinces on Saturday, a military spokeswoman said.
An hour-long gun battle broke out when separatist rebel group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters raided a camp in President Quirino town in Sultan Kudarat province shortly after midnight, Captain Jo-ann Petinglay said in a statement.
The BIFF, which opposes current peace talks between the country’s main Muslim rebel group and the government, also launched an attack on a camp in General Salipada K. Pendatun town in Maguindanao province, she said.
The raids were meant to sabotage the negotiations, Petinglay said, adding that the separatists “will continually be a potent spoiler to peace”.
The BIFF split from the country’s main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in 2008 to fight for a separate Islamic state in the mainly Catholic Philippines.
It made no comment about Saturday’s attacks.
The military had also blamed the BIFF for a bus bombing in the south in December that claimed 10 lives, and an ambush in November that killed an army major and two of his men.
The MILF signed a peace deal with President Benigno Aquino’s government in March last year, paving the way for an expansion of the current autonomous Muslim region.