4 hurt in MILF attack in Sultan Kudarat

SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines - Four were hurt when armed villagers and members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) clashed on Wednesday in Lutayan town in Sultan Kudarat province.

Local officials urged the MILF’s leadership core to restrain and censure the group of Commander Guiamandin and his followers, who raided Barangay Bayasong, provoking a running firefight with villagers.

The barangay chair of Bayasong, Falcon Bansil, was among the four people wounded in the ensuing encounter.

The injured Bansil and three barangay tanods, Dorin Manunutok, Buxoy Galindo and Salakib Norodin, who sustained gunshot wounds as they traded shots with Guiamandin’s group, were rushed to a hospital for medication.

Responding police investigators said Guiamandin is a field commander of the MILF’s 109th Base Command, which operates at the border of Lutayan and Buluan town in Sultan Kudarat.

A popular radio outfit in Central Mindanao, the Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation, reported late Wednesday that the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) had managed to reposition Guiamandin’s group away from Barangay Bayasong.

The IMT, comprised of soldiers from Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Libya and non-uniformed conflict resolution experts and economists from Japan, Norway and the European Union, has been helping enforce the government-MILF interim ceasefire since late 2003.