By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Government troops have launched a military operation against a breakaway group from the country's one time largest Muslim revolutionary organization who were involved in a clash late last month that left 44 police commandos dead.
Army spokesperson Capt. Calvin Macatangay said in a report emailed to The Anadolu Agency on Saturday that a second group involved in the killings -the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) - was helping to coordinate the operation.
The skirmish is believed to have started early February when a clan war broke out between the MILF and splinter group the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), which caused the evacuation of around 20,000 individuals from a nearby area.
At 6 p.m. (10.00GMT), soldiers of the Army 7th Infantry Battalion continue to provide military aid to the MILF as they clash with the BIFF in Pikit, North Cotabato, said Macatangay.
He added that operations had started in the town at around 6 a.m.
"We have already mobilized and we really have to do something to stop the BIFF," he added.
Macatangay denied claims by Abu Misry Mama - the self-proclaimed BIFF leader and spokesman - that mortar shelling has been launched in a civilian populace and that resident have fled the area for more than a week.
According to the Army 6th Infantry Division's public information office, the 7th Battalion and the MILF encountered the BIFF men in Brgy. Bulol on Friday evening, but shelling started at 6:30 a.m. Saturday.
The 6th Infantry Division said artillery support was provided to protect the 20,000 civilians forced to evacuate due to the encounter.
The MILF and the military have yet to verify the size of the BIFF force and the commander in charge of it.
On Jan. 25, police commandos traded fire with militants from the MILF and BILF in Mamasapano township in Maguindanao as they sought to apprehend Southeast Asia's most wanted man, Zulkifli bin Hir, known as Marwan. The firefight resulted in the deaths of 44 commandos.
The MILF's chief negotiator in an ongoing peace deal with the government, Mohagher Iqbal, has said that it will not surrender its members who figured in the incident, but the group has returned some of the dead commando's firearms.
The BIFF has refused to do so and has even demanded a "rematch" with the police; BIFF spokesman Mama telling reporters that they will not give the weapons back without a fight.
BIFF was founded by Ameril Umbra Kato - the Philippine's most wanted man - after he split from the MILF in 2008. However it wasn't until 2011 that MILF recognized the break and declared BIFF a "lost command."
BIFF has rejected the 2012 Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the preliminary peace agreement signed between the Government and the MILF, and vowed to continue the fight for full independence for the Mindanao as it disagrees with the MILF's acceptance of autonomy.
It is since reported to have formed an alliance with another rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front.
In 2014, the MILF inked the peace deal with the government with the aim of granting greater autonomy to the Muslim-majority provinces in the southern Philippines, ending a decades-long insurgency that has seen 120,000 people killed.
The suspected involvement of the MILF in the deaths of the commandos had threatened to derail the peace process.
