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MANILA: Hundreds of extra troops have been deployed in the southern Philippines after gunmen believed linked to a local politician kidnapped and killed at least 22 people, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.
One battalion of about 500 infantrymen was sent to Maguindanao province on Mindanao island after Monday's massacre, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Romeo Brawner told AFP.
"We have deployed more troops to go after the criminals," he said.
Brawner said the unit, which adds to about 3,000 troops already based in the area, was under orders to arrest the followers of local politician Andal Ampatuan, who is accused of being behind the abduction and subsequent murders.
"We maintain the Ampatuans are the suspects," Brawner said.
He said the troops were also tasked with finding at least 20 other people who were abducted and remain missing.
President Gloria Arroyo's office said late on Monday that she had ordered the acting defence secretary and acting chief of staff of the armed forces to fly to Maguindanao to oversee the operations against the murderers.
"No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law," the office said in a statement. "Civilised society has no place for this kind of violence."
Local journalists who narrowly avoided the kidnapping told AFP that 37 reporters were invited to cover the nomination of Ampatuan's rival for the governorship of Maguindanao in the May 2010 elections.
Not all the journalists agreed to cover the event but a large number did join a group that contained the wife, relatives and other associates of the rival candidate, Esmael Mangudadatu.
The military said about 100 armed men stopped the convoy of vehicles carrying more than 40 people on a remote section of highway near the town of Ampatuan, considered the stronghold of the politician with the same surname.
The military said troops later recovered 22 bodies, which mostly bore gunshot wounds, a few kilometres (miles) away.
Mangudadatu told local television network ABS-CBN on Monday that, after being warned about the dangers of nominating for the governorship, he stayed in Manila and sent his wife to lodge the documents.
He said that his wife was among those murdered.
- AFP/so
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