Hundreds of residents, mostly Christians, were held hostage by Muslims as they waged jihad across Southern Philippines. The seige is over with most of the captives being released. "It was
in one of the bloodiest and longest-running attacks by a Muslim group in
the southern Philippines, the scene of a decades-long Muslim war for sharia (under the guise of 'self-rule."
"Philippines says rebel hostage standoff that killed more than 200 people is over" The Daily Reporter, September 28, 2013 (thanks to the Religion of Peace)
MANILA,
Philippines — A deadly three-week standoff between government troops and
Muslim rebels who held nearly 200 people hostage in the southern
Philippines has ended with all of the remaining captives safe, officials
said Saturday.
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said only a handful
of Moro National Liberation Front rebels remained in hiding and were
being hunted by troops in the coastal outskirts of Zamboanga city. He
said authorities were trying to determine whether rebel commander Habier
Malik, who led the Sept. 9 siege, was dead. Gunshots briefly rang out
and a fire erupted in a small area Saturday.
More than 200 people were killed in the clashes,
including 183 rebels, 23 soldiers and police, and 12 civilians. It was
in one of the bloodiest and longest-running attacks by a Muslim group in
the southern Philippines, the scene of a decades-long Muslim rebellion
for self-rule in the largely Roman Catholic country.
"I can say that the crisis is over. We have
accomplished the mission," Gazmin said by telephone from Zamboanga,
where he helped oversee a government offensive and hostage rescue
mission by about 4,500 government troops and police backed by tanks,
navy gunboats and rocket-firing helicopters.
Gazmin said 195 hostages had either been rescued,
managed to escape or were freed. It was unclear whether any of the 12
civilians killed in the standoff were hostages.
The gunbattles, including exchanges of grenade and
mortar fire, forced about 130,000 residents — more than 10 percent of
the population of the bustling port city — to flee their homes to
emergency shelters, including Zamboanga's main sports complex. About
10,000 houses were burned by the rebels or destroyed in the fighting,
which raged in a 30-hectare (74-acre) area encompassing six coastal
communities, according to Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.
Cornered and outnumbered, the rebels sought help from
their comrades from nearby provinces, but guerrilla reinforcements were
repulsed, Gazmin said.
Police and troops still have to clear areas of the
dangerous leftovers from the fighting, including unexploded bombs, guns,
grenades and possible booby traps, Roxas said, adding that it may be up
to two weeks before residents are allowed to return home.
Gazmin, Roxas and military chief of staff Gen. Emmanuel
Bautista briefly toured the scene of the most intense gunbattles
Saturday in Zamboanga's Santa Catalina community, which was turned into a
wasteland after nearly 100 rebels died in clashes there. Army soldiers
retrieving dead guerrillas wore gas masks because of the stench from the
bodies.
All the houses in the vast community were either burned
by the rebels in daily infernos or damaged by gunfire and mortar
blasts. Atop a bullet-peppered building, troops raised a Philippine flag
at half-staff.
"The rebel siege is over and Zamboanga is free again," Roxas told reporters.
Bautista paid tribute to his soldiers, including 18 who
were killed and 169 wounded in the clashes. Bautista's father was an
army general who was shot to death with more than 30 of his men in a
1977 massacre by the same Muslim rebel group on nearby Jolo island.
The siege in Zamboanga, about 860 kilometers (540
miles) south of Manila, began when heavily armed insurgents arrived by
boat from outlying islands but were blocked by troops and policemen, who
discovered what authorities said was a rebel plan to occupy and hoist
their flag at Zamboanga's city hall. The rebels then stormed coastal
communities and took residents hostage and were surrounded by troops.
President Benigno Aquino III ordered an offensive that
began on Sept. 13 after the rebels refused to surrender and free their
hostages.
The rebel faction involved in the fighting dropped its
demand for a separate Muslim state and signed an autonomy deal with the
government in 1996, but the guerrillas did not lay down their arms and
later accused the government of reneging on a promise to develop
long-neglected Muslim regions.
The faction's leader, Nur Misuari, has not surfaced
since the siege began, but will be prosecuted along with 292 captured
guerrillas for rebellion and violating international humanitarian laws
that forbid the taking civilians hostage for use as human shields.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala said the
estimated 300 million pesos ($7 million) that was spent by the armed
forces to contain the rebel threat proved that the government will do
everything to protect the country's sovereignty.
"These rebels dared to challenge our very sovereignty
by raising their flag," Zagala said. "We'll never allow that to happen
at any cost."
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