Philippines: Kato burn day care center and more houses

by francisrivera | September 23, 2008 at 01:26 am

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After continous attacks to both MILF leaders, Kato and Bravo (wanted for 20 Million pesos) and their group of bandits. The MILF group is now making a new tactic of keeping their terrorist org alive..."we burn their schools then we train their children and then give them rifles".

COTABATO CITY—Followers of renegade Moro commander Ameril Ombra Kato on Sunday night torched a day care center, a health center and 16 houses in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, the military and the town’s mayor said yesterday.

No casualties were reported in the attacks in Barangay Dagungan allegedly carried out by two groups separately led by Musa Wahab and Basit Usman, according to Mayor Datu Akmad Ampatuan.

Usman has been tagged as the alleged mastermind of foiled bombing attempts last week at the public market of Isulan, Sultan Kudarat, and in the town center of Tacurong City.

Wahab and Usman are both known followers of Kato, Ampatuan said. Kato has been the object of a military manhunt for weeks.

Eid Kabalu, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s vice chair for civil-military affairs, said he had not received reports of burning of houses and day care and health centers in Mamasapano.

Rebel documents

Intelligence officials claimed that materials soldiers found at an MILF camp showed the rebels were training foreign militants and recruiting child soldiers while engaged in peace talks, according to Agence France-Presse.

The materials included training manuals, books on bomb making, as well as fake identification cards of foreign militants, some from the Middle East, the officials said.

Lectures in English and Arabic dealt with map reading and assembling fuses and powerful homemade bombs using cigarette lighters.

There were also pictures of what appear to be induction ceremonies for boys being trained to join the MILF, which denies recruiting children, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the Dharul Ifta (House of Opinion) of the Lanao provinces denied a call for a violent jihad (literally, “struggle”) was made during last Friday’s mosque sermons.

Aleem Mahmood Polangi, the mufti of Lanao and a member of the Assembly of Philippine Dharul Ifta, said muftis (or guardians of the House of Opinion) had written 48 sermons for the whole year and none contained a call for a “holy war.”

MILF chief negotiator Mohager Iqbal on Sunday claimed religious leaders in the two Lanao provinces, in their sermons Friday, “called on the Bangsamoro people to unite and wage a jihad—holy war—against enemies of Islam.” With a report from Agence France-Presse