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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck who wrote (19299)	2/20/2003 7:40:12 AM
From: lorne	Respond to of 23908

Philippine Army Says 15 Dead in Rebel Attacks Wed February 19, 2003 11:15 PM ET COTABATO, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippine army said Thursday a Muslim rebel was killed while planting a bomb in a crowded market after guerrillas killed 14 villagers in another area of the southern island of Mindanao. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest of four Muslim separatist groups in the largely Roman Catholic country, said reports linking its fighters to the bombing in Kabakan town and the massacre in Tubud village were military propaganda. The explosion in Kabakan Thursday morning came after thousands of government troops captured an MILF stronghold near the town of Pikit, about 500 miles south of Manila, last week in the wake of five days of fierce fighting. "The bomber was killed. It was a premature explosion while he was trying to plant the device in the market," Major Julieto Ando told Reuters by telephone. Local radio stations said at least nine people were wounded. Tubud is about 250 km (155 miles) west of Kabakan. The military said the blast came after 14 people were killed in Tubud Wednesday evening when about 50 men fired on the village with machineguns and grenade launchers, burned six houses and shot residents. "We still cannot determine the group responsible for the attack but there are indications that they belong to the MILF," Western Mindanao military commander Major General Glicerio Sua told reporters. But Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the rebels, denied the MILF was targeting civilians. "This is all military propaganda. The bombing in Kabakan is due to local politics," he told Reuters by phone. "There were skirmishes between our men and the military in Tubud. Our target was the military." He said he had no details of who was killed in Tubud. "Our commanders have autonomy to carry out attacks on military targets and not to hit civilians," Kabalu said. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Wednesday she had approved the draft of a peace agreement with the MILF to try to end 31 years of fighting that has killed at least 120,000 people, most of them civilians. Kabalu said Wednesday the rebels would not agree to a resumption of the stalled peace process until soldiers had pulled out of the territory they took last week. Government forces drove the rebels out of their base near Pikit last weekend. The military said about 150 rebels and eight soldiers were killed, but the MILF said it suffered 40 dead. reuters.com