MANILA: “Shoot them.” That was Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to the police and military should they encounter armed communist insurgents.
Duterte said an executive order is in the works to declare the Maoist New People’s Army (NPA) a terrorist group.
“I am preparing now, they are preparing the executive order declaring (the NPA) to be terrorists and they will be afforded the treatment of criminals,” he said in a speech on Wednesday.
The president said that he had decided to cut off talks with the communists because of a lack of “sincerity” on their part.
“I think that they are not really serious,” he said, adding that apart from biding their time, “they do not have the second echelons to carry the fight and they just want to be comfortable.”
He told government security forces that “if there is an armed NPA there or terrorist, if he’s holding a firearm – shoot,” adding: “They will kill you anyway.” Duterte warned government forces to be vigilant as the NPA are on the offensive.
The president last week issued Proclamation No. 360 terminating talks with the rebels.
Days later, a series of encounters between government troops and members of the NPA in the provinces of Abra, Surigao Del Sur and Batangas left 16 rebels dead: 14 of those killed, including a 22-year-old student from the University of the Philippines, were from the clashes on Tuesday night in Nasugbu, Batangas, south of the capital.
Arab News asked Brig. Gen. Arnulfo Burgos, Jr., commander of the 202nd Infantry Brigade, about the operation that resulted in the killing of the student and 13 others.
“They were all armed, 11 bandoliers were recovered from them. They were going to conduct a tactical offensive,” Burgos said. He said the university student had also been armed.
“They’re all NPA members,” he said, adding that the rebels may have been on their way to attack a police station when they were intercepted by troops.
Col. Edgard Arevalo, public affairs office chief for the armed forces, said in a press briefing that the military operations against the NPA should send a strong signal that the government is determined to end the long-running insurgency in the country.
He said with combat operations over in Marawi — the site of a bloody urban battle between Daesh-backed fighters and government forces — the military can now redeploy its soldiers in accordance with the directive of the commander-in-chief.
Philippine president issues kill order against communist rebels
Philippine president issues kill order against communist rebels
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
