43 Filipino commandos killed by Muslim fanatics

43 Dead Commandos

MANILA, Philippines  —  More than 43 (updated) police commandos were killed in a clash with Muslim insurgents Sunday in the southern Philippines in the biggest single-day combat loss for Philippine forces in many years, officials said.

The commandos had entered the far-flung village of Tukanalipao at dawn looking for a top terror suspect, but had a “misencounter” with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and other insurgents, Mayor Tahirudin Benzar Ampatuan of Mamasapano town told The Associated Press by telephone.

Other insurgents in the area later joined in fighting the outnumbered police forces, the mayor said.

The Moro group signed a peace deal with the government last year reports the New York Post.

Ampatuan, the Moro group and military officials said the police commandos did not coordinate their plan to enter the Muslim rebel village before sunrise, apparently resulting in the fierce fighting.

The fighting in the marshy village of corn and coconut plantations subsided after several hours when members of a cease-fire committee and foreign truce monitors intervened, Ampatuan said, adding he deployed a team of village leaders and guards, who saw more than 30 of the slain commandos scattered in the battle scene.

“What they described to me was gruesome,” Ampatuan said.

The conflict has left 150,000 people dead and helped stunt development in the country's poorest regions.

Heavily armed Muslim Moro rebels gather in their camp in a
village in Mamasapano, Maguindanao province.

Islamist Rebels
Sheik Salamat Hashim, in an interview in Nida’ul Islam states his now too-familiar objectives:
.
“To make supreme the Word of Allah and implement Shari’ah [Islamic law].” His promise to those who would support him in ridding the world of Christian, Jewish and other infidel oppressors echoes down from that chain of conflicts that began with the Crusades: “Allah will surely compensate and reward you here in this world and in the Hereafter.”
(Independent Sentinel.com)

Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels in the Philippines