6 killed, 2 hurt in Sulu massacre

text HADER GLANG

SIX people, including an 8-old month girl, were killed while two others wounded in another strafing Friday midnight in the southern town of Sulu province, where Philippine and US soldiers are set to conduct a joint anti-terrorism exercise later this month.

Five unidentified gunmen strafed three houses in barangay (village) Palar, Patikul, an adjacent town of Jolo. They fled immediately after killing three men, two women including a Muslim woman married to a Christian, and the baby girl, a report over state-owned Radyo ng Bayan said.

Survivor Jeniffer Pontanilla, 22, confined at the Sulu provincial hospital for minor wound, said prior to the shooting, one of the gunmen clad with fatigue uniform knocked their doors and asked if they were Christian or Muslim.

“The gunmen who were speaking in Tagalog roused us from sleep and then minutes later fired their guns. They ran right away when we screamed for help,” she said in Tausug dialect in an interview over Radyo ng Bayan station.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, the second of its kind since Jan. 28, when unidentified gunmen strafed a mosque in barangay Busbus, wounding 20 people, all Muslims residing in the area. In that incident, one victim expired in the hospital.

The incident occurred on the eve of the congressional inquiry by the House Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity into the November 2005 renewed hostilities between government forces and MNLF fighters and the reported involvement of some American soldiers.

Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, one of the panels in the public hearing, condemned the latest massacre, saying that the spate of violence in Sulu may be part of the rundown to the impending arrival of US troops in the province this month.

He blamed the military for the killings. He said the community, where the massacre occurred, “is surrounded by military forces and is in fact very near the 3rd Marine Brigade camp.”

Marine Brigade commander Col. Juancho Savan, denied Ocampo’s accusation in an in interview over Radyo ng Bayan, saying that no marines can do such inhuman act. “This people just want to destroy the peace and then put the blame on us.”

Military officials at the Armed Forces Southern Command could not be reached for comment on the motive of the attack, but authorities in Sulu said a clan war may have caused the strafing of a Muslim community. (ZS)