Philippines | Toll of Filipino commandos killed in rebel clash rises to 43

At least 43 Philippine police commandos were killed in a fierce battle with Muslim guerrillas after launching an assault in which they may have killed one of southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorists, officials said yesterday.
A police Special Action Force member remained missing while 11 others were wounded in the daylong clashes Sunday in a far-flung village of Mamasapano town in Maguindanao province in the biggest single-day combat loss for the Philippine government in recent memory, officials said.
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas called the commandos “fallen heroes” who sacrificed their lives to try to capture Malaysian bombing suspect Zulkifli bin Hir, or Marwan. The top terror suspect may have been killed by the commandos, he said.
Another top terror suspect, Filipino bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman, managed to escape, according to Roxas.
After attacking Marwan, the police commandos came under fire from hardline Muslim insurgents in the marshy village of Tukanalipao while some strayed elsewhere and got entangled in a firefight with insurgents belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Muslim rebel group, which last year signed a new peace deal with the government, national police Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina said.
Under the truce, government forces are required to coordinate anti-terror assaults and other law enforcement operations with the Moro rebels to prevent accidental fighting. But the aapproximately 100 police commandos did not notify the rebels before they arrived in the dark, Moro rebel leader Mohagher Iqbal said.
“If somebody barges into your house, what will you do?” Iqbal said by telephone.
He said the 11,000-strong Moro group would file a protest over the action of the police commandos, but added the incident was not likely to undermine the peace process, a view shared by Philippine officials.
“The peace process will not be affected because we’re not dealing against the MILF here,” Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said, referring to the Liberation Front.
The United States has offered up to $5 million for Marwan’s capture and $1 million for Usman. Both have been blamed by U.S. and Philippine authorities for deadly bomb attacks and providing bomb-making training to al-Qaida-­linked militants in the country’s south. AP