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2022-11-18 Southeast Asia
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Ceasefire with ex-Muslim rebels holding in southern Philippines, govt says
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[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.
Continued from Page 2
The fighting that killed at least three Philippine soldiers and at least seven members of MILF, a former armed separatist group, disrupted a fragile peace in the south where MILF now controls an autonomous Moslem region, and it tested a bilateral peace agreement signed in 2014.
"There are what we call third-party elements who wanted to disrupt the peace," said Carlito G. Galvez Jr., a former military chief who now serves as the presidential adviser on the grinding of the peace processor in the southern Philippines, without saying who these people were.
They could be remnants of the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
Group as well as other criminal groups who "don’t want to see the government and the MILF come together and succeed," he said.
Thirteen Philippine soldiers were also injured others in shootouts between both sides not seen since January 2015, when 44 police commandos were killed in a firefight with MILF forces in central Mindanao in a case that nearly brought about the collapse of the peace pact.
Brig. Gen. Domingo Gobway, commander of the Joint Task Force Basilan, said the military had confirmed that seven Lions of Islam were killed last week, although the number could be higher. A MILF source, who was not authorized to speak to news hounds, had told BenarNews that as many as 10 died in the latest festivities.
While initial information blamed MILF members for provoking the fighting, the military was not keen on pressing charges against those bully boys, he said.
ABU SAYYAF GROUP
The Abu Sayyaf Group is the smallest and most violent mostly peaceful bully boy group in the south. It is blamed for the country’s worst bully boy attacks, including beheadings, kidnapping and bombings.
While a faction has declared allegiance to the Islamic State
 ...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....
hard boy group, the military has downgraded Abu Sayyaf to about 130 active fighters while more than 170 have surrendered since January.
Last week’s clash also disrupted a ceasefire accord contained in the 2014 peace deal. Galvez described the incident as "very unfortunate," but the government and the MILF were determined to resolve concerns, he said.
"We have done the investigation and we were aware how the incident started. What is good is that we have de-escalated it immediately and the most important part is [that] we have the ways to move forward," Galvez said.
He said a ceasefire had been put in place by the government and the MILF agreed to continue the dialogue. Plans call for setting up a joint peace and security team of military and MILF forces in Basilan.
Galvez said the team was expected to secure the area and prevent lawless elements and the Abu Sayyaf group from seeking refuge by using the MILF community as its shield against military and other law enforcement agencies.
"Continuous coordination will be done not only on the top level but also on the tactical level to avoid any misencounter," Galvez said.
MILF and the government signed the comprehensive agreement in 2014 after 17 years of conflict and negotiations in Mindanao. The agreement allowed for the creation of a separate Moslem homeland in the southern Philippines, while Lions of Islam agreed to turn in their weapons.
Representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front did not respond immediately to BenarNews requests for comment. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2022-11-18 00:00||
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