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COTABATO, Philippines, June 8 (AFP)-Philippine troops on Thursday captured three more camps of the country's largest Islamist stronghold. A senior official said Manila would reject any calls to stop the offensive. About 1,500 army soldiers entered the Moro Islamic Liberation Front's (MILF) Camp Limbalod in Maguindanao province at 5:00 p.m. (0900 GMT), capping a weeklong assault backed by artillery and rocket-firing attack helicopters, military officials said. Troop commander Colonel Hermgenes Esperon said they found bunkers and trenches, which were well camouflaged and could not be seen from the air. The soldiers occupied a building, which the Islamists had referred to as the seat of an Islamic government they had set up in the area. "The so-called municipality of Hamin, an MILF shadow government, has been dismantled," said Esperon to reporters. He said soldiers were still conducting "mopping up operations" and the Philippine flag would be raised over the camp by daybreak. Esperon said he could not give any casualty figures in Thursdays' fighting in which troops also marched into the Darapanan and Sampaguita camps in Maguindanao. Military spokesperson Major Julieto Ando said several hundred MILF members monitored in two adjacent camps fled overnight as the soldiers approached. The military has captured six other key MILF camps since January, while also conducting peace negotiations with the 15,000-strong MILF, which is battling for an independent Islamic homeland in the southern Philippines. President Joseph Estrada's national security adviser Alexander Aguirre said Thursday the government was likely to reject any calls by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to stop the offensive. "We have the absolute prerogative to make a decision on the matter," he said. Aguirre made the statement in a radio interview from Qatar amid frenzied lobbying by MILF leaders, including meetings with officials from Libya and Afghanistan, to gain observer status in the OIC, an influential forum of 56 Muslim states. A draft communiqué, which will be considered by a meeting of OIC foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur from June 27th to 30th, incorporates a paragraph calling on Manila to stop the offensive against the MILF. Senior OIC officials approved the document, made available to AFP, during a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last month. The draft is to be presented for approval to the OIC foreign ministers, who will issue their final communiqué at the end of their meeting, said a source that requested anonymity. Aguirre said on Thursday that any OIC statement would only be "persuasive." He also noted that the document was still a draft. Philippine security forces last month launched an offensive against the MILF. Fighting is continuing and threatens to scuttle fledgling peace talks aimed at finding a political solution to the MILF's 22-year armed struggle. A casualty count released by the military on Thursday showed 184 government troops had been killed so far this year, with 692 wounded and four missing. |
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