MANILA, Phiippines - The Philippine military said Sunday it would put
four senior special forces officers on trial over a botched mission
against Muslim insurgents that left 19 commandos dead and almost
scuppered peace talks.
Military prosecutors found sufficient evidence to warrant the court
martial proceedings against a colonel and three lieutenant colonels, the
armed forces said in a statement.
"The next step is the arraignment of the accused military personnel
in the said case," the military said in a statement, without giving a
date.
The four officers are accused of organising a flawed special forces
mission to arrest a top Muslim militant in the southern island of
Mindanao in October last year.
Investigations by army prosecutors found that half the 41 commandos
involved in the operation were unprepared and had been in the area for
an unrelated training programme.
The soldiers entered thick jungle terrain controlled by the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), triggering heavy fighting that killed
19 soldiers and several rebels.
The attack triggered bloody clashes that displaced 20,000 families in
the south and led to the near-collapse of peace talks between the
government and the MILF, which has been waging a rebellion since the
1970s.
The rebels accused the military of violating an earlier agreement to stay away from its known camps.
It was later discovered that the military's top general in the region was not told of the operation.
Both sides have since returned to the negotiating table.
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