5 hurt in MILF attack in Sultan Kudarat - AFP

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - Five people were wounded when suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels attacked a village in the southern Philippine province of Sultan Kudarat Tuesday, a regional military spokesman said. Lt. Colonel Jonathan Ponce, spokesman for the Army's 6th Infantry Division, said the rebels fired mortars toward a military detachment in Santa Clara village in Kalamansig town. There were no reports of military casualties, but one mortar shell exploded near a school, wounding a woman, Ponce said. He said a group of policemen, who rushed the injured civilian to the hospital, were also ambushed by rebels on their way back home, wounding four of them. "The MILF is now very desperate, even shelling civilian communities and clearly shows that the MILF leadership remains futile as they can no longer control their forces in the ground," Ponce said. The MILF claimed responsibility for the attack on the army detachment, saying, it was in retaliation to government offensive against the rebel group. It said the woman injured in the attack is a wife of a soldier. "[We] targeted only the detachment, which is being used as a springboard to attack MILF targets in the town. There was no school near the detachment," said Eid Kabalu, a senior MILF leader. But Kabalu said they were still investigating the attack on the policemen. "We still don’t know who were behind the attack, but the policemen were injured in a bomb explosion in the village of Cadiz, which is far away from where the rebels attacked the army detachment," he said. - Al Jacinto, GMANews.TV