When asked about the attack, the spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front took advantage of plausible deniability, saying “Our forces on the ground have autonomy. They can do whatever they want but it’s not sanctioned by the entire organization.” That tends to defeat the purpose of having an organization, unless the whole point is to act with impunity and evade responsibility.
“Nine govt troops killed in southern Philippines,” from Agence France-Presse, June 28:
Seven policemen and two soldiers were killed in two separate attacks by suspected Muslim guerrillas on the restive southern Philippine island of Basilan, officials said on Sunday.
In the latest incident, seven policemen travelling in a government vehicle were killed in an ambush by a hundred Muslim gunmen in the town of Sumisip on Sunday, said police spokesman Superintendent Danilo Bacas.
A civilian who was guiding the police was wounded in the raid.
This story from Deutsche Presse-Agentur (thanks to Twostellas) suggests that tenth victim may have been a local militia member, who later died.
The attackers may have been either from the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a separatist group, Basilan police commander Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar said.
However Bacas said renegade MILF members were the likely culprits.
On Saturday, two soldiers were shot dead by suspected Abu Sayyaf members as they stepped outside of their camp to buy cigarettes in Tipo-tipo town, said military spokesman Colonel Romeo Brawner.
The soldiers were on the island to help repair damaged schools, he added.
The Philippine police meanwhile said they were dispatching 226 police commandos to Basilan to bolster security forces there.
Asked about the latest attack, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the rebels’ leaders will check whether their forces were involved in the incidents.
“Our forces on the ground have autonomy. They can do whatever they want but it’s not sanctioned by the entire organization,” Kabalu said.
Basilan is known as a hotbed of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group that intelligence agencies have linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network….