By Al Jacinto Correspondent

ZAMBOANGA CITY: Security forces wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles on Friday raided the mansions of a powerful clan in southern Philippines and seized illegal firearms from the homes of the alleged brains behind last week’s massacre of 57 civilians.

The guns were confiscated a day after policemen and soldiers unearthed from a vacant lot in Maguindanao province a huge cache of light-artillery and heavy-infantry weapons and ammunition in the capital town of Shariff Aguak near the mansions of the Ampatuan family, a key political ally of President Gloria Arroyo.

Officials said that local residents were providing the authorities with information about illegal weapons in the province where, on November 23, more than 100 gunmen allegedly led by Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. of Datu Unsay town attacked a political caravan made up of the 57 civilians, including 30 journalists.

The mayor is a son of Andal Ampatuan Sr., the clan’s patriarch and governor of Maguindanao.
Ampatuan Sr. was not detained during the raid.

“The search is continuing and we expect to find more weapons and munition. Civilians and allies of the Ampatuans are themselves providing us with trivial information about these weapons,” said Maj. Randolph

Cabangbang, a regional Army spokesman.

Cabangbang added that the security forces, armed with court warrants, searched the houses of Ampatuan Jr. and his father and Zaldy Ampatuan, another son of the patriarch and also the governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The mansion of another son, Sajid Ampatuan, also the deputy governor of Maguindanao, was also searched.

The mayor surrendered three days after the massacre and denied all accusations against him. His father and brother Zaldy also denied involvement in the mass murder. He has been charged with 25 counts of murder.

His father and other clan members were also implicated in the attack that also left dead the wife and two sisters of rival Ismael Mangudadatu, the vice mayor of Buluan town who is running for Maguindanao governor in the 2010 elections.

Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect in the massacre, is being groomed by his father to succeed him as provincial governor, a position also being contested by Mangudadatu. The journalists were only covering the filing of the candidacy for governor of Mangudadatu, but they were killed too.

During Friday’s raid, television pictures showed soldiers and policemen tearing down a wall believed to be concealing a secret arsenal in one of the mansions. Another video showed soldiers with K9 units and metal detectors searching for weapons and explosives inside the sprawling housing complex.

The military began scrutinizing the illegal weapons after discovering that many of the guns had markings that suggested they came from the Department of National Defense.

Among the recovered firearms were 57mm and 90mm anti-tank bazookas, mortar bombs, machineguns, sniper and assault rifles, automatic pistols and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition.

It was unknown whether these weapons seized from the Ampatuans were sold by rogue soldiers or if any of the firearms were used in the massacre.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th apparently was sure that the guns were purchased from the Defense department and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“This corrupt and condemnable practice [of selling government firearms] has not only led to the sacrifice of countless lives of soldiers, law-enforcement officials and innocent civilians but has been fueling the endless war in Mindanao and other volatile areas,” Trillanes said in a statement.

He added that arms supply for warlords was also one of the root causes that impelled him and the Magdalo group of rebel military officers to demonstrate and speak out against the Arroyo administration at Oakwood in 2003, at Manila Peninsula in 2007 and “whenever we get the chance to be heard.”

“President Arroyo, as Commander in Chief, and his anointed former Defense Secretary Gilbert ‘Gibo’ Teodoro, must be made accountable for all the deaths caused by these guns,” Trillanes said. Teodoro is the administration party’s candidate for president in next year’s polls.

Trillanes, a Magdalo leader, was accused of leading the Oakwood mutiny and the Manila Peninsula caper, both non-bailable offenses. He was elected senator in 2007 while behind bars.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group negotiating peace with Manila, had also accused military commanders of illegally selling automatic weapons to political warlords.
President Arroyo, who also on Thursday went to the wakes of some of the journalists killed in the attack, ordered authorities to arrest those involved in the grisly murders.

More than 3,000 policemen and soldiers deployed last week to Maguindanao have taken over the provincial capitol building and two other town halls controlled by the Ampatuan patriarch.

The raiders, according to another military spokesman, “are looking for guns, bullets, everything.”
“The [search] warrant covers everything,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce told Agence France-Presse.
The compound that the security forces swooped down on is surrounded by concrete walls about 2 meters (six feet) high and contains the homes of a number of Ampatuan clan members.

It is in Maguindanao’s capital, Shariff Aguak.

GMA 7 television network showed a police investigator using a hammer to bore a hole on a wall that was apparently part of the guardhouse of the mansion of Ampatuan Jr.

Television footage showed ammunition boxes being pulled out from the hole, but the television network said that the boxes were empty.

The network also aired footage of the raid on the home of Ampatuan Sr.

It showed one of his sons, Sajid Ampatuan, crying as an armored troop carrier entered the gate of his compound and with the clan’s security men lying face down on the floor.

The raid took place after investigators on Thursday unearthed the large cache of weapons, another military official told GMA 7.

“We believe that these [guns] were used during the massacre,” Col. Leo Ferrer, the commander of an Army brigade in the area who led the search, said during an interview aired by the television network.
The weapons inventory included three anti-tank recoilless rifles, five mortars, seven machineguns, 10 rifles and pistols and more than 100 boxes of bullets.

Effective information gathering by the military and the police paved the way to the discovery of the buried cache of guns.

“Na-trace natin kung saan inilibing or itinago yung malalakas na armas na mukhang nagamit ng mga salarin dun sa massacre, also posibleng itong ibang mga armas ay nagamit din ng mga armadong elemento sa buong Maguindanao [We were able to trace where the firearms were hidden by the accused in the massacre, it is also possible that some of these weapons had also been used by other armed groups in Maguindanao], ” national-police chief Jesus Verzosa said also on Friday.

Those who sold the guns unearthed near the Ampatuan compound will be prosecuted, Col. Romeo Brawner, the military’s Public Affairs Office chief, said during a news briefing also on Friday.
Gen. Victor Ibrado, the Armed Forces’ chief of staff, according to Brawner, “will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who is found to be guilty of gunrunning or selling ammunition to anyone who is unauthorized [to do so].”

Muslim rebels fighting for an independent homeland in the southern part of the country have been waging a rebellion on Maguindanao and other parts of Mindanao island since the late 1970s.
The conflict has claimed more than 150,000 lives, according to military estimates.

The Arroyo government has used Muslim clans such as the Ampatuans to rule these areas, and allowed them to build up their own armies as part of a containment strategy against Muslim and communist insurgents.

Critics, however, critics have said that this tactic has created warlords who act outside the law, with the recent massacre just the most dramatic example.

AFP with reports from Sammy Martin and Jefferson Antiporda