CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao, Philippines – Wanted Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leader Ameril Ombra Kato and his followers have bombed two bridges, attacked military detachments and set on fire dozens of houses in Datu Piang, Maguindanao since Monday night.
Local officials said Kato’s group first attempted to destroy the Lintokan Bridge that connects Datu Piang to the Cotabato-General Santos Highway, using an improvised explosive.
Kato, chief of the MILF’s 105th Base Command, has a P10-million bounty for leading bloody attacks on farming villages in North Cotabato after the aborted signing in August last year of a memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain between the government and the MILF.
The Supreme Court subsequently declared the agreement unconstitutional.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the explosion did little damage to the bridge.
“It’s still usable, but measures to prevent it from collapsing have slowed down the traffic there,” Ponce said.
Another rebel group identified with Kato also blasted an improvised explosive under a bridge not far from the Datu Piang town proper several hours later.
“These bombing of bridges are very clear indications that these rebels are now ruthless terrorists,” Ponce said.
Another group of MILF rebels ambushed a convoy of soldiers belonging to the Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion along the same highway hours after the bombings.
Ponce said Kato’s followers also set on fire several houses not far from the highway where they waylaid the soldiers.
“There are several barangays traversed by that highway that have become ‘critical’ in the past 24 hours,” he said.
Ponce said the hostilities in Datu Piang have unduly delayed the transport of relief supplies for evacuees in the town.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the bombing of the Lintokan Bridge was part of a counter-attack against the military “which have targeted innocent Muslims in their offensives.”
He, however, said their fighters “have nothing to do with the burning of the houses.” – With Jaime Laude