Describing a clash that claimed the lives of 30 officers as a "misencounter" seems a bit of an understatement, but this is an
insurgency that will not end soon or well.
More than 30 police commandos were killed in a clash with Muslim insurgents Sunday in the southern Philippines in the biggest single-day combat loss for Filipino forces in many years, officials said.
Dozens of commandos had entered the far-flung village of Tukanalipao at dawn looking for a top terror suspect, but had a "misencounter" with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Mayor Tahirudin Benzar Ampatuan of Mamasapano town told The Associated Press by telephone.
Other insurgents in the area later joined in fighting the outnumbered police forces, the mayor said.
The 11,000-strong Moro group signed a peace deal with the government last year and forged a cease-fire, which has been safeguarded by a Malaysia-led team of foreign truce monitors and has halted major conflicts between the two sides for years.
Ampatuan, the Moro group and military officials said the police commandos did not coordinate their plan to enter the Muslim rebel village before sunrise, apparently resulting in the fierce fighting....
At least two Philippine security officials told The AP that the target of the police commandos was Zulkifli bin Hir, a Malaysian terror suspect known also as Marwan, who has been blamed by U.S. and Philippine authorities for several deadly bombings in the south. Marwan, who allegedly has provided bomb-making training and funds to local al-Qaida-linked militants, is believed to have been hiding in the country's south since 2003.