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Recent Appearances...

Southeast Asia

Marcos condemns ‘cowardly ambush' of Philippine troops

2024-03-30

18.March 2024
[BenarNews] President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday promised swift justice for four soldiers killed by Filipino Islamic State
"Islamic

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
~~bandidos~~ Lions of Islam in the southern Philippines over the weekend. The military said suspected members of Daulah Islamiyah, a hard boy group, waylaid troops from the 3rd Cavalry of the 40th Infantry Battalion on Sunday in Maguindanao del Sur province, a hotbed of Islamic militancy. The troops were returning to base after distributing supplies to villagers near the town of Datu Hoffer.

"We strongly condemn the cowardly ambush that targeted four of our courageous soldiers in Maguindanao del Sur on March 17," Marcos said in a statement. "The despicable act only strengthens our resolve to eradicate terrorism from the region and our entire nation."

Marcos said his administration remained "resolute in our pledge to ensure that justice is swiftly served" for the fallen troops. He said he has instructed the military to quickly release financial assistance to the families of the fallen soldiers.

Reports reaching Marcos’ office said the troops had left a remote village where they had distributed food for residents in observance of Iftar, the breaking of the daily fast that Moslems observe during Ramadan.

Leaders of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Moslem Mindanao, which includes Maguindanao del Sur, did not comment on the attack as they had not seen a report about it, according to military officials.

The autonomous region is home to a fragile peace between Manila and former Moro Islamic Liberation Front separatist guerrillas, who administer BARMM. The region has struggled with violence since its birth in 2019.

On Monday, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. extended his condolences to the families of the four "brave" soldiers who were killed. He said they were ambushed by at least 10 gunnies.

"The AFP vows to hunt down the perpetrators and neutralize these ruthless killers to finally put a stop to their ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful acts that disrupt peace and stability in the region," Brawner said, referring to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Brawner said the military efforts would focus on members of Daulah Islamiyah, which literally translates to the "Islamic State." It includes fighters from several Filipino hard boy factions, including the Maute Group, which had provided men and logistics during a five-month siege of Marawi city by pro-IS fighters in 2017.

That siege, considered by security analysts as the biggest attack by the Islamic State in the region, was meant to take Marawi by force to make it the base in the region. Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern fighters attacked Marawi, leading to a five-month battle that killed at least 1,200 hard boys, military, police and civilians.

Sunday’s attack came a little more than two months after two army intelligence operatives were killed in an ambush while gathering information against suspects linked to a bombing during a Catholic Mass in Marawi city in December 2023 that left four dead.

Link

Southeast Asia

2 MILF members blamed for deadly ambush surrender in southern Philippines

2023-08-19

[BenarNews] Two rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front members suspected of taking part in an attack that killed a soldier and a police officer in the southern Philippines last weekend have surrendered and will be charged with murder, military officials said Thursday.

The suspects were among 10 MILF button men who ambushed a government security team on Aug. 12 as it escorted regional peace monitors in Ulitan, a barangay on Basilan
...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts...
island, said Brig. Gen. Alvin Luzon, commander of Joint Task Force Basilan and the 101st Brigade.

The two were "primarily responsible (among the) perpetrators in the recent ambush," Luzon told news hounds here.

He said the suspects surrendered on Tuesday and had provided the military with vital information used by government troops to hunt down the others involved in the attack that left seven other troops injured.

Basilan is one of several provinces in the southern Mindanao region that make up the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Moslem Mindanao (BARMM). In a 2014 peace agreement with Manila, the MILF gave up its long-running separatist insurgency in exchange for autonomous rule over predominantly Moslem areas in Mindanao.

Under the deal’s terms, the group promised to have its tens of thousands of members turn over and decommission their weapons, but the MILF has struggled to meet that target. In various phases so far, it has decommissioned about 4,500 weapons of 40,000 believed to be in the hands of the members of the former guerrilla force, according to Department of National Defense estimates.

In Sunday’s attack, the button men ambushed a security convoy guarding a Joint Peace and Security Team tasked with overseeing the decommissioning and disarming of former MILF combatants. The team — whose members are military, police, MILF and local officials — assists in monitoring and enforcing the peace pact.

On Thursday, Luzon pointed to the 2014 peace agreement as being instrumental, in close coordination with its leaders, for the "peaceful and voluntary surrender of the two rebel suspects."

He identified the suspects as Adzmin Manjapal, 20, and Mudzni Sapau, 27, saying they were both rogue members of the MILF.

The suspects were turned over to the Basilan police chief Col. Carlos Madronio to be charged with murder, Luzon said, while vowing to provide justice for those killed and seven injured in the ambush.

Luzon credited MILF leaders with facilitating the surrender, naming Malik Cadil, officer-in-charge of Western Mindanao Front MILF; and Hadji Sammad Ahaddin, member of the MILF Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostility. Abdurahman Rajan, deputy commander of MILF 114th Base Command, also played a role.

The military commander had previously said that the MILF’s leaders do not have control over people not identified as their members.

The MILF leaders did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment.

During a decommissioning ceremony for 1,300 ex-combatants earlier this month, Murad Ebrahim, who heads the BARMM, blamed holy warrior groups with endangering efforts to disarm former MILF guerrillas.

Under the decommissioning process, each former combatant who hands over weapons is expected to receive about U.S. $2,400 per weapon, including funds for education.

"We are facing a very challenging situation because there are still groups out there that encourage our members to join them," Murad said at the time.

The surrender came amid an intense military-police manhunt for the suspects who were believed to be linked to a MILF faction led by Huram Malangka. The faction was alleged to be involved in killings including acting as guns for hire for criminal gangs.

"Under the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., such attacks will not go unpunished. Justice will be served," Philippine presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez said on Thursday.

"The blatant disregard for human life and hostilities against our peace builders is an affront and an act of contempt against the tenets of peacebuilding, human dignity and respect to the rule of law."

Link

Southeast Asia

Philippine military blames ex-separatist rebels for deadly southern ambush

2023-08-16

Splitters!

[BenarNews] The Philippine military on Monday accused members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former guerrilla group, of killing a soldier and a policeman during an attack in the south that left seven government troops maimed.

In Sunday’s incident in Ungkaya Pukan, a remote town in the island province of Basilan
...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts...
, officials said that 10 button men ambushed a security convoy guarding a Joint Peace and Security Team. The team is tasked with overseeing the decommissioning and disarming of former MILF combatants as agreed in a 2014 peace agreement with Manila.

The team members were riding in two vehicles after inspecting the area — a former MILF stronghold — when they were attacked, said Maj. Andrew Linao, a regional military front man.

"Our troops fought back, resulting in a firefight which lasted for five minutes," Linao said.

He said the soldier went titzup, while the policeman died later while being treated for his injuries. The seven other maimed soldiers were recuperating at a military hospital in Zamboanga City.

"This act is a clear manifestation of the perpetrators’ disrespect to their local government officials, the military, and their fellow Basileños, hence, we will not stop until these heartless individuals are identified and neutralized," Linao said.

BenarNews contacted local MILF authorities but did not immediately hear back.

Brig. Gen. Alvin Luzon, commander of 101st Brigade and Joint Task Force Basilan (JTFB), said the MILF leadership "appears to have no control over its members," although he added that they had denied their members were involved in the ambush.

"Right now, the pressure is on the MILF side to show their sincerity," Luzon told news hounds.

The former separatist group’s leadership said they had no control over people not identified as their members, according to Luzon.

"But the MILF leadership promised to look and identify those perpetrators," Luzon said.

He said pursuit operations were continuing on Monday against the suspects.

The 12,000-strong MILF was once the country’s largest murderous Moslem force until it dropped its bid for independence and settled for expanded autonomy under the 2014 peace deal.

Demobilization started in 2019, and was to be taken in three stages. At each stage, those demobbed were to get U.S. $2,400 per weapon, including funds for education. Stage 1 covered 145 gunnies and 75 weapons, stage 2 covered 12,000 gunnies and 2,000 weapons. Stage 3, which started this month, is to cover 12,699 gunnies and 2,450 weapons. It’s odd that the Philippine defense department estimated 40,000 firearm in MILF hands.

The separatists then became caretakers of a Moslem region although they agreed to turn over their weapons, while some of the ex-guerrillas were absorbed into the local police force.

As long as the Philippine government surrendered the territory to the Ummah, that’s all that should matter. Except to those who refuse to give up the pleasures of the hard jihad of the sword even after they’ve won.

In November, around 100 suspected MILF members attacked a military outpost in the same village as the weekend ambush, according to the military. Officials did not immediately say if the two incidents were related.

Link

Southeast Asia

Bangsamoro leader: Militants endanger efforts to disarm ex-MILF guerrillas in southern Philippines

2023-08-05

[BenarNews] Militant groups are endangering efforts to disarm former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas by trying to recruit them, the head of an autonomous Moslem region in the southern Philippines told 1,300 ex-combatants during their official decommissioning ceremony this week.

Some MILF members have reneged on the group’s promise to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to cooperate in the transition to peace in the south, said Murad Ebrahim, the ex-chief of the former separatist group who now heads the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Moslem Mindanao (BARMM).

"We are facing a very challenging situation because there are still groups out there that encourage our members to join them," Murad told news hounds Thursday during a ceremony here as he led 1,301 former MILF combatants in the third and final phase of a process to decommission them as fighters and have them turn over their weapons.

Link

Southeast Asia

Thousands flee standoff between govt forces and ex-guerrillas in southern Philippines

2023-06-27

[BenarNews] Thousands of civilians have fled their homes in the southern Philippines’ Sulu islands amid a standoff following a deadly weekend gunbattle between police and armed former guerrillas, officials said Monday. As of late Monday, the standoff was still ongoing and at least one policeman and three suspected members of the Moro National Liberation Front, a former separatist rebel group, were reported killed in related violence over the weekend.

The military said the violence began Saturday when followers of Pando Mudjasan, a former town vice mayor and leader of the MNLF, fired upon coppers as they prepared to serve him an arrest warrant for murder and illegal firearms and ammunition.

Police said Mudjasan’s armed followers housed inside a fortified compound opened fire on the police as they approached the village of Bualo Lipid in Maimbung town.

Maimbung is on Jolo island in Sulu province, for those interested in the geography of the thing.

One member of the police Special Action Force (SAF) unit and three followers of Mudjasan were killed in the fighting. Ten coppers and a soldier were also reported to have been maimed, while two civilians were hit by stray bullets, the police and military said.

The violence has displaced about 5,000-6,000 civilians, Maj. Andrew Linao, front man for the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom), said Monday. The civilians were sheltering in the Maimbung town gymnasium and being assisted by local officials.

"They fled because they are very afraid, and we are calling on everyone to calm down," Linao told news hounds. "But that is what usually happens when you have a firefight near a populated community."

Civilians near the conflict area were being advised not to return to their homes amid ongoing tensions in the area.

Brig. Gen. Eugenio Boquio, commander of the Army’s 1101st Brigade, said Mudjasan and his brother were maimed but were able to escape, according to intelligence reports. But Mudjasan and his followers have not beat feet from Sulu, an island province in the far southern Philippines, although it was unclear how many of their followers were still inside the compound, Linao said.

Linao said the area where the fighting was concentrated had been cordoned off, with troops and soldiers moving closer in.

"The operation of the SAF and police unit is ongoing to serve the warrant, capture and neutralize Pando [Mudjasan]," Linao said.

"Our effort is continuing now and our Army has set up checkpoints and blockades to prevent them from escaping."

Mudjasan’s group was composed of 20 to 30 individuals prior to the clash on Saturday. But the number of his fighters grew to around 50 individuals during the fighting, officials said.

Political warlords controlling their own private armies is a pervasive problem in the Philippines, especially in the southern Mindanao region where many of these officials were once members of bully boy groups who command their own forces.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was once the country’s largest separatist force until it signed a peace deal with the government in 1996, although that agreement failed.

A splinter group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), would later sign a deal that would supersede the old peace pact and create an expanded Moslem autonomous region in Mindanao now controlled by MILF.

Some ex-MNLF fighters became elected local officials in Jolo, with their former rebel commands forming their own private armed security, officials said.

Military coordination and talks with the Sulu-based MNLF leadership were continuing to ensure that the law enforcement operation was aimed only at Mudjasan due to his criminal charges, officials said.

Mudjasan’s illegal activities were not sanctioned by the MNLF leadership, officials said. The runaway’s group was composed of "sympathizers and (Mudjasan’s) relatives from the MNLF," Brig. Gen. Boquio said.

Reports said police and military officers were about to serve an arrest warrant against former MNLF leader Pando Mudjasan when the suspect’s followers fired at the team, triggering a firefight. https://t.co/Hd7F4ZxSw3 pic.twitter.com/v17bH99wEK
— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) June 26, 2023

6,000 Maimbung, Sulu evacuees returning home after shootout, says gov

[MSN] More than 6,000 residents of Maimbung, Sulu who were evacuated for their safety during a deadly shootout over the weekend are now being sent home, the governor said.

On Saturday former vice mayor Pando Mudjasan and his men exchanged fire with government forces who tried to serve a warrant of arrest on him. The encounter left one policeman and four people on Mudjasan's side dead.

According to Jun Veneracion's report on "24 Oras" on Monday, Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan said that some of the evacuees have started returning home.

Mudjasan, who is still on the lam, is suspected to be a leader of the Moro National Liberation Front

Link

Southeast Asia

Filipino soldier, militants killed in southern Philippine clash

2023-06-05

[BenarNews] A soldier and four Filipino turbans from the local arm of the Islamic State

“Downsizing”.

The Marawi crisis was the biggest outbreak of violence attributed to IS in Southeast Asia, killing more than 1,200 bad boys, soldiers and civilians and leaving the city in ruins.

The turbans killed Wednesday belonged to a group that threatened to launch attacks last week in the area, security officials said.

Soldiers from the 7th and 9th Scout Ranger Company caught up with the Daulah Islamiyah fighters on May 31 after tracking them through jungle territory, Army front man Maj. Jairus Mark Mira said.

Sounds like a good time was had by all — except the dead guys, of course.

In the heavy fighting that followed, Private First Class Jemric Pol Contingo was killed and three soldiers maimed.

All honour to them — they fought the good fight.

An assortment of weapons were recovered from the dead bad boys, Mira said, though several men from the group escaped.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of the 1st Infantry Division that oversees the area, sought on Friday to assure the public that troops were scouring the territory and the group would be unable to carry out further attacks.

"Government troops will not stop pursuing the local terrorist group until they are all neutralized," Nafarrete said in a statement.

The fighting happened days after military intelligence officials told BenarNews they had received reports that local DI leader Abu Zacharia — the IS emir for Southeast Asia — was preparing attacks in the region to avenge the capture of four of his comrades.

He succeeded Owaida Marohombsar (also known as Abu Dar), the leader of the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group who was killed in neighbouring Lanao del Norte province in March, 2019.

Abu Zacharia, who is also known as Jer Mimbantas and Faharudin Hadji Satar, survived a number of military operations in Lanao del Sur last year. He was part of the Maute group that seized Marawi in 2017, but escaped capture by authorities.

Little is known about him, except that he is a nephew of the late Alim Abdul Aziz Mimbantas, a ex-ranking leader in Lanao of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former rebel group based in the southern Philippines that signed a peace pact with the government and now controls an autonomous region.

Link

Southeast Asia

5 suspected IS-linked militants killed in govt assault in southern Philippines

2023-03-28

[BenarNews] Five suspected Filipino Death Eaters with the local the Islamic State

One was named Mohammed and the other Mahamoud.

Citing information from the informants, Almorato said DI members apparently were planning to detonate the IEDs at populated areas in Maguindanao and Cotabato provinces at the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan last Wednesday.

Materials used in the manufacture of IEDs, a .45-caliber pistol and Garand rifle ammunition were found at the lair, Almorato said.

The DI group is composed mostly of Death Eaters belonging to a faction from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters
...a MILF splinter group aligned with the Islamic State...
, a splinter group from the ex-separatist force Moro Islamic Liberation Front,

(MILF), so go ahead and snicker...

which controls an autonomous region in the south.

Link

Southeast Asia

1 soldier killed, another wounded in violence in southern Philippines

2023-03-23

And so Ramadan begins.

[BenarNews] Violence marred the eve of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan in the southern Philippines after suspects from a pro-Islamic State

Link

Southeast Asia

4 policemen killed, governor wounded in southern Philippine ambush

2023-02-18

[BenarNews] Four coppers were killed and three other people, including a provincial governor, were maimed in a roadside ambush in the volatile southern Philippines on Friday, officials said.

The coppers were escorting a convoy transporting Gov. Mamintal Adiong when unidentified button men attacked them on a highway near Maguing town in Lanao del Sur province, according to his younger brother Zia Alonto Adiong, a local politician.

"Four of his escorts were killed," Adiong told BenarNews, adding that his older brother was among three people maimed.

"The governor is safe. He is out of danger now," he said without elaborating.

Fahad Molok, the mayor of Maguing, told BenarNews that the area where the attack occurred was a controlled area of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Philippines’ largest former separatist group.

In 2014, the MILF signed a peace deal with Manila in exchange for control of a large Moslem autonomous area.

Under the terms of that deal, former MILF fighters agreed to give up their arms in exchange for money. A small number were also trained as coppers and members of the army.

The deal however did not sit well with some of the fighters, and many of them splintered and joined other rebel factions, or turned to banditry or guns for hire, officials said.

Molok said that local coppers quickly responded to the site "but the perpetrators were already gone."

It was not immediately clear what the motive for the attack was, and whether Adiong had any armed enemies.

Intense political rivalries and clan wars are all too common in the Philippines, especially in the southern island of Mindanao where years of insurgency has led to a proliferation of firearms.

Link

Southeast Asia

Gunmen launch deadly attack on southern Philippine Muslim community

2023-01-19

Jihad or not, they act the same. It’s just the targets that are different. This time it’s not jihad, just normal intra-Moslem viciousness.

[BenarNews] Gunmen attacked a community of former Moslem guerrillas in the southern Philippines city of Cotabato before dawn on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring five others, police said.

About 20 gunnies stormed the village of Tamontaka 2, a community of mostly former rebels belonging to Moro National Liberation Front

...the Turkic paramilitaries intended to replace with their native jihadi ferocity all the highly trained Turkish soldiers Sultan Erdogan I the much beloved has jailed in the last few years for not worshipping the ground he walks upon. The Uighurs and so forth who did not join Al Nusra or ISIS seem to have ended up here...
(MNLF), city police chief Col. Querubin Manalang told news hounds.

Manalang said a shootout erupted between the button men and MNLF members, resulting in the death of two former rebels, identified as Pacundo Pangilan and Razul Abdulla, and the injuries to the others.

"The situation now is back to normal. We have coppers deployed in the area," Manalang said.

The chief said Sherlocks have not determined what led to the attack.

"If this is a case of clan war, we ask the families of those fatalities to coordinate with us so we can take the necessary action."

Romeo Sema, a senior MNLF leader who is a labor minister in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Moslem Mindanao (BARMM), confirmed that his group’s members were involved in the gun fight.

"We are still investigating," he told BenarNews, but could not release additional details.

In the Philippines, particularly in predominantly Moslem areas of Mindanao island, it is not unusual for families to settle differences through clan wars or "rido." Hostilities could last for decades until a peace pact is signed by the protagonists, usually through mediation by religious leaders along with a cash payment.

CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
Political rivalries, ancestral land claims, disputes on local fiefdoms, as well as election-related feuds often spur clan wars in Mindanao, the country’s mineral-rich southern third that has been locked into a cycle of violence for years. The island near the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah has also been saddled by decades of local insurgencies and separatist movements.

The MNLF was the precursor of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The older group signed a peace deal with Manila in 1996, dropping its rebellion for a separate Moslem homeland in the south for autonomy.

The MILF had splintered from the MNLF in 1978 and continued fight with government forces until 2014 when it agreed to peace in exchange for limited autonomy, eventually leading to the BARMM.

While both groups had agreed to decommission firearms and retire their fighters, unlicensed weapons remain a concern in many areas in the south.

Under the MILF agreement with the government, each former combatant who turns in weapons is expected to receive a cash payment, including money for education.

Despite the agreement, Rommel Banlaoi, a counter-terrorism analyst at the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, said the proliferation of firearms in the south is a huge problem.

Citing data, Banlaoi said 80% of the 600,000 unregistered guns in the Philippines are in the region.

"Illegal guns are mostly found in BARMM, not to mention the continuing homemade bomb training camps in the Bangsamoro region," Banlaoi told BenarNews.

Link

Southeast Asia

Ceasefire with ex-Muslim rebels holding in southern Philippines, govt says

2022-11-18

[BenarNews] A truce halting intense festivities between Philippine troops and members of a former Moslem separatist guerrilla group is holding in the south, the government’s chief peace adviser said Wednesday as he blamed "third party elements" for last week’s deadly fighting.

The two days of festivities on Basilan
...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts...
island ignited on Nov. 8 when Moro Islamic Liberation Front forces fired at Philippine troops who were sent to arrest "lawless elements" blamed for local bombings, authorities said. The MILF members involved in the fighting apparently were protecting other people from arrest.

Link

Southeast Asia

Seven people killed in fighting between Philippine military and Muslim rebels in country's south, followed by hudna

2022-11-11

Follow up to this story from yesterday about MILF suddenly restarting the war.

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

⚫️ Seven people have been killed in fighting between the #Philippine_military and Muslim rebels in the country's south, authorities said Thursday, in one of the deadliest clashes since a landmark peace pact was signed in 2014.#jusoor_post pic.twitter.com/uUsvgvTEE5
— Jusoor Post EN (@Jusoorpost_EN) November 10, 2022

Philippine military, MILF agree to ceasefire after deadly clashes on southern island

[BenarNews] The Philippine military and Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with Manila in 2014, agreed to a truce ending two days of deadly fighting on southern Basilan
...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts...
island, officials said Thursday.The rare fighting marked the fiercest and bloodiest outbreak of violence between government and MILF forces in almost eight years. The military said three of its soldiers were killed and 13 others were maimed in the fierce festivities, which began on Tuesday afternoon and lasted until Thursday morning in and around the village of Utilan.

Military officials could only account for three deaths and an undetermined number of maimed among More Islamic Liberation Front members. A source related a MILF combatant had told BenarNews on Wednesday that as many as 10 fighters on their side were killed.

Representatives of both sides who sit on a bilateral body, the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, had met "to halt the tension triggered by miscommunication," the chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom) said on Thursday.

"We are currently employing ceasefire mechanisms to pacify the situation," Brig. Gen. Arturo Rojas said, adding that troops deployed to the area were instructed to "protect the integrity of the grinding of the peace processor."

"I ordered the troops to strengthen their defensive position to avoid [more] casualties and collateral damage," he said.

The fighting broke out on Tuesday in Utilan, where MILF fighters were believed to be "coddling" suspected faceless myrmidons who were involved in twin bombings that maimed two people in the capital of Basilan in May.

The violence started when MILF members allegedly shot at a security detail escorting Lt. Col. John Ferdinand Lazo, the commander of the 64th Infantry Battalion, who had arrived on site to open a dialogue with the MILF people.

After a lull on Wednesday night the fighting resumed on Thursday morning, but the guns have since fallen silent after both sides ordered the ceasefire, officials said.

"We thought there’s already peace, but the MILF again provoked (us), they shot up our troops," Brig. Gen. Domingo Gobway, commander of the military’s Joint Task Force Basilan, told news hounds Thursday.

The festivities forced nearly 1,500 families from six villages to flee their homes but no civilian deaths were reported, the military said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the three Philippine Army soldiers were killed when they were ambushed by MILF forces during a mission to resupply soldiers on the frontline, said Lt. Col. Abdurasad Sirajan, front man for WestMinCom.

The fighting was the first major clash between government forces and MILF members since January 2015, when 44 police commandoes were killed by MILF forces as they entered a rebel stronghold to arrest a Malaysian hard boy bomber named Zulkifl bin Hir (alias Marwan).

Marwan was killed in the raid, but a breakdown in coordination and communication led to the clash. The MILF later told a congressional inquiry in Manila that their forces thought they were being attacked.

Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the Philippine president’s adviser on peace, reacted with alarm to the news about the latest fighting by saying it could not be allowed "to negate the major gains we have achieved over the years," news reports quoted him as saying in referring to a fragile peace in the southern Bangsamoro region.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front now controls an autonomous Moslem region in the southern Philippines. In 2014, the guerrilla group signed a peace accord with the government that ended decades of fighting.

On paper the MILF has ceased to be a rebel group, with some of its members having applied to join the government’s military and police forces. While the MILF has agreed to order its members to turn in and decommission their firearms, officials and analysts have warned that many guns remain in the hands of former fighters in the field.

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