You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but probably is not suitable for your application.
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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <backlinks>
      <bl pageid="4" ns="0" title="Wiki Management" />
      <bl pageid="42" ns="12" title="Help:Editing" />
      <bl pageid="44" ns="2" title="User:Will" />
      <bl pageid="397" ns="0" title="Walk Through Orientation" />
    </backlinks>
  </query>
</api>