MANILA - Special forces police firing assault rifles and tear gas stormed a maximum security prison in the Philippines capital on Tuesday to end a bloody 24-hour uprising by Al-Qaeda-linked inmates.
Police swarmed the four-storey building from the gates and from the top floor shortly after 9:00 am (0100 GMT), pouring withering automatic rifle fire on the cells. The assault was shown live on local television.
Some of the 400-plus prisoners on the upper floors could be seen running for cover as tear gas enveloped the Camp Bagong Diwa compound, located inside a police camp in southeastern Manila.
The government forces wore gas masks and were apparently intent on taking the building one floor at a time. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Minutes earlier, government negotiator Parouk Hussin announced the failure of the negotiations to win the surrender of the 400-plus prisoners nearly a third of them members of the Abu Sayyaf.
Abu Sayyaf prisoners seized the second storey of the building early Monday, killing three prison guards to support calls for better prison conditions and a speedier trial. But the government said the revolt was part of a failed escape attempt.
"A military operation is the next option," said Hussin, governor of a Muslim self-rule area in the south where most of the rioting Abu Sayyaf prisoners came from, shortly before the assault began.
Asked in a television interview if the negotiations to win the rebels` surrender had failed, Hussin, who was part of the negotiating team, said: "Obviously yes."
He said the government would take steps to spare those inmates who are not part of the uprising.
The prison holds many of the top terrorist suspects in the Philippines, including those blamed for the firebombing of a ferry on Manila Bay last year that claimed more than 100 lives.
The US government has branded the Abu Sayyaf as a "foreign terrorist organization." The group kidnapped a group of tourists in the western Philippines in 2001, and two American captives were killed in the year-long hostage drama.
03/15/2005 01:42 GMT