Army de-escalates Moro groups clash

COTABATO CITY — Guns are silent for two days now at the border of Nabalawag and Midsayap towns in Cotabato, after scenes of deadly clashes last week between heavily armed Moro groups squabbling for control of strategic spots in the area.

Officials of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade and the 6th Infantry Division (ID) separately told reporters on Monday, that the feuding groups, one identified with Nabalawag Mayor Renz Tukuran and the other, led by a certain Commander Kuntay, immediately disengaged and scampered away when soldiers came in on Friday to secure the areas where they figured in gunfights that displaced no fewer than 2,000 villagers. The clashes also killed two villagers, according to local officials.

Personnel of Army units under the 602nd Infantry Brigade, led by Brig. Gen. Ricky P. Bunayog, seized last week more than 20 assault rifles, grenade launchers, a K3 machine gun and an 81-millimeter mortar left by gunmen from both sides as they fled hastily when they sensed then that soldiers were approaching their locations from different directions.

Mr. Bunayog and his immediate-superior, Major Gen. Jose Vladimir R. Cagara, separately told reporters that nine of the combat weapons were found in the house of Mr. Tukuran.

Mr. Cagara, also commander of the 6th ID’s anti-terror Joint Task Force Central, said all of their pacification efforts in the conflict-stricken barangays at the boundary of Midsayap and Nabalawag are closely coordinated with the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

A big group from the Joint Peace and Security and Team, or JPST, composed of policemen, soldiers and members of the MILF, was also deployed in the area to prevent a repeat of last week’s gunfights between the two groups. — John Felix M. Unson