PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — The military on Thursday mounted an offensive against Islamic militants who killed 14 Marines, despite concerns the action may damage efforts to rescue a kidnapped Italian priest.
The Marines were ambushed on Tuesday in the town of Tipo-Tipo in Basilan as they investigated a tip-off that Father Giancarlo Bossi, abducted from his parish on June 10, was being held in the area.
Ten of the slain Marines were beheaded, the military said.
The government believes the attackers were a mix of fighters from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic extremist group known to have ties with al-Qaeda.
President Arroyo said troops had been ordered to go after the fighters involved in the killings, despite ongoing government peace talks with the MILF.
“The armed forces are duty bound to hunt down and arrest those who treacherously killed and beheaded the soldiers,” the President said in a statement. “If MILF forces are culpable, then they must be accounted for by the ceasefire committee and brought to justice.”
The Armed Forces chief of staff, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, said he has ordered that a battalion of troops be deployed in the area “if only for the purpose of being able to prevent some people from escaping.”
The 12,000-strong MILF, which has a three-year-old truce in place as it negotiates peace with the government, says its forces attacked the Marines after they entered MILF territory without advance notice.
The group has denied any involvement in the beheadings, and says four of its members were also killed in the clash.
The 57-year-old Bossi, of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), was seized by unknown heavily armed men near his parish church in Zamboanga Sibugay on June 10.
The government had earlier said Bossi’s kidnappers could either be Abu Sayyaf men or renegade members of the MILF. The MILF has denied any involvement in the abduction and initially helped in the hunt for his captors.
Regional military commander Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo said the military would continue their hunt for the missing Italian on Basilan despite the potential for more clashes with the MILF.
The local Marine commander, Col. Ramiro Alivio, insisted that Bossi was in the area of the deadly ambush.
“The MILF has to face the music,” Alivio said.
The President’s chief adviser on the peace talks, Jesus Dureza, said the government’s confidence in the MILF leadership has not waned in the wake of the ambush.
He said an international team of monitors from Malaysia, Libya and Brunei were on the ground carrying out an investigation as both sides moved to prevent an escalation of violence.
Esperon said “there is a natural tendency to be angered by dastardly acts, but our soldiers are keeping their cool, keeping in mind that this is not all about getting back at the perpetrators.”