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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
JOLO, Sulu: Police have tightened
security in the province of Sulu
following reports that Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)
forces were planning to launch a series of attacks against
government targets.
Some 300 MNLF members have
gathered in Talipao town and were said to be planning to attack
military posts, police intelligence reports said.
“There were reports alright,
but all these are subject to verification. One report suggested the
MNLF is to attack military posts in Bayug village in Talipao, but so
far there have been no attacks,” Superintendent Jul Asirim Kasim,
the Sulu provincial police chief, told The Manila Times.
Kasim said they received reports
from the villagers in Talipao town. He said MNLF leader Khabir Malik
was supposed to lead the attack. “Some 300 MNLF members gathered
in Talipao last week, but we do not know what was discussed during
their meeting,” he said.
Inspector Usman Pingay, police
chief of Jolo town and Superintendent Muhibuddin Ismail, chief of an
elite provincial police force, said they have no reports about an
impending attack. “It is peaceful in Jolo,” Pingay said.
Ismail said his group has not
received reports about the planned attacks by gunmen loyal to jailed
MNLF chieftain Nur Musuari. “We have no reports about it,” he
said in a separate interview.
Other reports said the MNLF in
Sulu has joined forces with the Abu Sayyaf group tied to al-Qaeda
and Jemaah Islamiah and would attack police and military camps.
Misuari signed a peace deal with
Manila in September 1996 ending decades of bloody war. After the
peace agreement was signed, Misuari became the governor of the
Muslim autonomous region. But despite the accord, there was a
widespread disillusionment with the weak autonomy they were granted.
Under the peace agreement, Manila
would provide a mini-Marshal Plan to spur economic development in
Muslim areas in the south and livelihood and housing assistance to
tens of thousands of former rebels to uplift their poor living
standards.
Many former guerrillas were
disgruntled with the peace deal, saying the Arroyo government failed
to comply with some of its provisions and uplift their standards of
living. They accused Manila of failing to develop the war-torn areas
in the south.
And in November 2001, on the eve
of the elections in the Muslim autonomous region, Misuari accused
the government of reneging on the peace agreement, and launched a
new rebellion in Sulu and Zamboanga City, where more than 100 people
were killed.
Misuari then escaped by boat to
Malaysia, but had been arrested and deported to the Philippines. He
is now under house arrest in Manila.
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