Abu Sayyaf gunmen kill 21 Filipinos in road attack

By Associated Press in Manila | China Daily | Updated: 2014-07-29 06:52

Abu Sayyaf gunmen attacked Filipino civilians traveling to celebrate the end of Ramadan with their families on Monday, killing 21, including six children, in a brazen road attack that was the bloodiest in recent years by the violent militant group, police and military officials said.

Eleven other civilians were wounded as the group traveled in two vans in a coastal village in the town of Talipao in predominantly Muslim Sulu province, where the militants have survived in jungle encampments despite years of US-backed Philippine military offensives.

About 40 to 50 Abu Sayyaf militants armed with assault rifles opened fire on the vans, marine Brigadier General Martin Pinto and other military officials said. The motive was not immediately clear, but Pinto said some of the dead belonged to a civilian security force and were engaged in a clan feud with Abu Sayyaf.

Violent clan wars, known as rido, have complicated security worries in the country's south, which is already mired in decades-long Muslim rebellions.

Among those killed in the attack were at least four members of a Talipao civilian security force known as the Barangay Police Action Team that has been helping the military fight the jungle-based militants in recent months, Pinto said.

Armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala condemned "this heinous atrocity that victimized innocent civilians", adding the military "will continue its pursuit operations until those responsible are brought to justice".

"This attack cannot be justified by any ideology and shows Abu Sayyaf's terroristic nature," Zagala said.

Six of the dead were aged 2 to 15, and four of the wounded are children, including a 3-year-old boy, a police report said. An 83-year-old man was among the dead. Possible family relationships among the travelers weren't immediately clear.

Abu Sayyaf, which has about 300 armed fighters split into several factions, was organized in the early 1990s, but it has been crippled by government operations and endures largely due to huge ransoms from kidnappings. It now holds about 10 hostages, including two German tourists seized in April and two birdwatchers, one Dutch and the other Swiss, who were kidnapped two years ago.

Abu Sayyaf is one of about four smaller Muslim insurgent groups outside of a peace deal signed by the Philippine government in March with the main rebel group, the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front that calls for the creation of a more powerful and potentially larger autonomous region for minority Muslims in the south of the largely Catholic country.

Sulu, about 950 kilometers south of Manila, is one of the country's poorest provinces.