--BEGIN TRANSATION---We have scattered to the hills screaming like little girls----END TRANSLATION.
Posted on 02/14/2003 10:16:01 AM PST by Indy Pendance
PIKIT, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippine army said Friday its troops were meeting little resistance as they moved into a Muslim rebel stronghold, but the militants insisted they had changed tactics and were not on the run.
Clashes around the town of Pikit on the southern island of Mindanao -- which began at dawn Tuesday -- have shattered a shaky cease-fire between the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The army says it may have killed nearly 157 members of the MILF, the largest of several groups fighting for an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country. Six on the government side have died and 55 have been wounded, it added.
But Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the MILF, said only 40 rebels had been killed and six wounded.
"We are still resisting," he told Reuters by telephone. "We moved to highly mobile guerrilla tactics."
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said this week the target of the military offensive was not the MILF itself, but rather a notorious gang of kidnappers dubbed "Pentagon," which she said had taken shelter in the rebel camp near Pikit.
Kabalu, however, said that talk was a smokescreen for the military's true objective. "The real target is our forces in the area," he said.
The MILF says it has no intention of pulling out of sporadic peace negotiations aimed at settling a 31-year-old separatist conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people.
"It's very difficult to talk while fighting is going on," Kabalu said, but added: "Our commitment is still there to a lasting political solution to the Mindanao problem."
Army division commander Major Generoso Senga said troops were now conducting mopping-up operations at a sprawling MILF camp straddling the provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato.
"Our troops have practically secured all the objective area on the Pikit side," Senga told a local television station.
The fighting has been raging about 300 km (185 miles) east of Zamboanga City, where hundreds of U.S. special forces are due to begin a second phase of exercises Tuesday designed to raise the counter-terrorism skills of Philippine soldiers.
This week's battles have forced some 30,000 villagers to flee their homes and seek shelter in government warehouses, schools and churches.
Intelligence agencies have accused the MILF -- which has an estimated 12,000 fighters on Mindanao -- of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
The United States has branded Pentagon and Abu Sayyaf, another militant Muslim group which also has kidnapped foreigners on Mindanao, as terrorist organizations.
Laying there dead is a curious tactic. I wish more jihadists would follow it.
Interesting that the US media refuses to pick up these stories.
Meanwhile, peace advocates Friday celebrated Valentines’ Day by sending fresh flowers to the French embassy in Makati City to show support for its opposition to the US’s planned invasion of Baghdad.
Are the French now giving advice to the rebels?...
$%&^#%^--BEGIN TRANSATION---We have scattered to the hills screaming like little girls---#@^#%---END TRANSLATION.
--BEGIN TRANSATION---We have scattered to the hills screaming like little girls----END TRANSLATION.
So, now that the *MILF LIST has all gathered, what's the joke? Maybe you better FReepMail it, I can only imagine the shades of blue considering what we are talking about. ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.