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 Philippine forces in many years, officials said.
The 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 and other insurgents, 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 Moro group signed a peace deal with the government last year.
Ampatuan, the Moro group and military officials said the police commandos did not co-ordinate their plan to enter the Muslim rebel village before sunrise, apparently resulting in the fierce fighting.
The fighting in the marshy village of corn and coconut plantations subsided after several hours when members of a cease-fire committee and foreign truce monitors intervened, Ampatuan said, adding he deployed a team of village leaders and guards, who saw more than 30 of the slain commandos scattered in the battle scene.
"What they described to me was gruesome," Ampatuan said.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/more-30-filipino-anti-terror-police-commandos-killed-141455963.html
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