April 17, 1995, Time Magazine, Death in the Afternoon, by Anthony Speath,

April 17, 1995, Time Magazine, Death in the Afternoon, by Anthony Speath, John Colmey in Ipil and Nelly Sindayen in Manila,

Dressed in military fatigues and carrying rifles, the strangers began drifting into town the night of April 3 and continued arriving the next morning. Some came on buses, others in a truck. Residents of the isolated trading town of Ipil (pop. 52,000), 500 mi. south of Manila, noticed the newcomers. But soldiers are a common sight most places in the Philippines, particularly on the turbulent southern island of Mindanao, with its history of Muslim insurgency. "We thought they were real army," said Arturo Dimla, a local accounts clerk.

Until 12:30 p.m. the next day, that is, when one of the gunmen entered the Emil Emilios Restaurant and Bakeshop and shot dead a Philippine army major as he ate lunch. For the next 2 1/2 hours, the fake soldiers made Ipil a hell on earth. They gunned down men, women and children, plundered the town's seven banks and took money from shops. "They were killing people like they do this every day," said a survivor, Loyita de los Reyes. Rogelio Villafuerte, a public-works engineer, said, "They came to town ready to start a war." The 200 or so gunmen ended the carnage around 3 p.m., then sauntered out of town, taking along 13 hostages, including a group of women wearing uniforms from Gerry's department store. Left behind were 53 dead, 44 wounded and a white flag with the name of Abu Sayyaf (Bearer of the Sword), a Muslim separatist group known to have ties to terrorists.

Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan said the attack was staged in retaliation for the arrest of six alleged Muslim militants in Manila on April 1 for illegal possession of firearms and explosives. Another theory held that the assault was simply a terrorist fund raiser: the gunmen left town with sacks of cash totaling $1 million. Whatever the motivation, the incident was the latest evidence that despite decades of fighting and negotiating, the Philippines, with a mostly Christian population of 66 million, has still to solve the problem of separatism among its 6 million Muslims. Two days after the Ipil raid, President Fidel Ramos fired the leader of the army's southern command, Brigadier General Regino Lacson, as well as the commander of the 102nd Infantry Brigade, near Ipil. At week's end Ramos flew to the town to survey the damage. After meeting with town and military officials, he barked, "Go get those terrorists and protect our communities."

The government had been expecting Abu Sayyaf to make a move as early as two weeks ago. The five-year-old group, one of several demanding either autonomy or a separate Muslim state on Mindanao, has been linked to the Islamic fundamentalists charged with planning the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. The connections have been detailed in recent weeks by Edwin Angeles, once Abu Sayyaf's military strategist, who surrendered to Philippine authorities in February after a falling out with his fellow fighters. Angeles, backed by military intelligence, has linked Abu Sayyaf with Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center attack.

Ipil, a predominantly Catholic town, was the site of violence between Muslim insurgents and Christian vigilantes in 1972, the first battle of a 20-year Muslim insurrection on Mindanao that left more than 50,000 people dead. The ferocity of last week's attack surprised even followers of Abu Sayyaf. The group was previously thought to have only about 350 armed members, mostly on the smaller islands of Basilan and Jolo rather than Mindanao. After the Ipil slaughter, military-intelligence officers are convinced that Abu Sayyaf is receiving help from members of the country's two largest Muslim fighting groups, the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which have a combined armed force of 15,000. The mnlf is engaged in peace negotiations with the Ramos government, talks that have so far yielded preliminary agreements between the two sides. Abu Sayyaf, which includes several grown children of Muslim separatists killed in the 1970s conflict, maintains that the peace talks betray the Muslim cause.

Few believe that Abu Sayyaf could have acted alone in unfamiliar territory, especially given the careful planning that preceded the assault. It began with a diversionary tactic at dawn Tuesday, when unidentified armed men attacked security guards at a gold mine 15 mi. outside the town. Colonel Roberto Santiago, the 102nd Brigade commander, sent his 40 best soldiers. At 12:30, with the garrison depleted, the killing began. Some residents, hearing gunshots, thought a fire had broken out: since there is only one telephone in town, Ipil's customary way to raise a fire alarm is to fire shots into the air. The gunmen, wearing black ninja hoods or blood-red neckerchiefs, fanned out through the town. The men killed a guard at the Allied Bank branch and emptied the tellers' drawers. When the assistant bank manager said he could not open the vault, they shot staff members and two remaining guards. Gunmen walked from store to store, often laughing, as they fired wildly and emptied cash registers.

"One man was drinking a Coke with one hand and shooting his AK-47 into shops with the other," recalled a resident. The killers came to Jeffrey Agtoto's family store twice; when he told the second group that his cash had already been taken, they killed him. Efren Pascualado, a young pastor, was shot in the leg. "I saw a man on a roof I thought was a soldier, and I said, 'Please, sir, help me.'" He wasn't a soldier. But in one of the few acts of kindness that day, the gunman told the pastor, "Escape."

At 1:20, the raid's leader gave a one-word order-"Impiyerno!" (Hell)-and the men started setting fire to Ipil; eventually the entire city center was virtually destroyed. When four fire fighters drove in from the edge of town on a yellow fire truck, the rebels shot the driver in the head. Then they made a leisurely withdrawal. From his house, where he was hiding with his family, Villafuerte watched them depart. "They stopped up the road at a shop to drink Cokes and beer," he said. "They didn't kill anybody. But I don't think they paid for the beers." After 4 p.m., the first military helicopters finally swooped over Ipil. By then the attackers had split into two groups and moved out to the distant hills, picking up a dozen more hostages as they went.

By week's end the army had poured more than 1,000 troops into the area, and they were fighting a running battle with some 200 rebels 15 mi. west of Ipil. The troops attacked with artillery and helicopter gunships, and the guerrillas returned the fire, forcing some 7,000 people to flee for their safety. Army officers said the rebels were trying to link up with reinforcements from an mnlf camp at Siocon, in the adjoining province. The Abu Sayyaf had forced civilians to bury at least 14 of their dead fighters. The toll on the other side: five hostages and three soldiers.

In Ipil, survivors were picking through the smoldering remains of their town for more bodies and looking toward the future with dread. "It was a peaceful place until this," said De los Reyes. Now she and other residents of Mindanao wonder whether they will know peace again. --Reported by John Colmey/Ipil and Nelly Sindayen/Manila.