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This really blew up in our faces.
“Among the details mentioned in the 126-page report prepared by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Board of Inquiry (BOI) was that President Benigno Aquino III did not only know about Oplan Exodus but he also approved the top secret operation and was apparently aware of the specifics of the mission that led to the tragic death of 67 people: 44 elite policemen, 18 fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and five civilians,” reports France Noguera on News5.
The BOI said that the Jan 25 Mamasapano mission was “defective from the very beginning.”
The BOI stressed that Aquino had allowed Purisima’s participation in the planning and execution of the mission even if Purisima had ‘no authority’ to approve Oplan Exodus ‘by reason (of his) suspension.'”
The report pointed out that “Purisima was already suspended when Oplan Exodus was presented to President Aquino on January 9, 2015.”
According to the BOI, “the approval of Oplan Exodus should have come from OIC-PNP Espina pursuant to the doctrine of Chain of Command.”
The encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Jan 25 left 44 members of the elite Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) dead. The PNP-SAF troopers had been out to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias “Marwan” and Filipino bomb maker Abdul Basit Usman. Both men had bounties on their heads placed by the U.S. government: US$5 million for Marwan and US$1 million for Usman.
The operation turned bloody when members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they had to fight back because the PNP-SAF had breached their territory. They alleged that they had not been informed about the operation to get Marwan and Usman. The hostile encounter lasted 11 hours. The MILF lost 18 of their fighters.
Both the government and the MILF are currently doing probes on the Mamasapano encounter to determine what went wrong, as the incident threatens the Bangsamoro peace deal. It has since been revealed that the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and even some armed civilians were also involved in the clash.
