BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

MAGUINDANAO --- The raiding team that searched for narcotics found only four assault rifles and a grenade in the house of Vice Mayor Otto Montawal of Montawal town in this province.The Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao announced on Friday that the 5.56 M16 assault rifles and fragmentation grenade recovered before dawn Thursday in the vice mayor’s residence in Barangay Talapas, Montawalshall be used as evidence in prosecuting him for illegal possession of firearms and explosive.The PRO-ARMM said the raiding team did not find any methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu)

MAGUINDANAO -- Two gunmen were wounded in a gunfight with a police team that raided Thursday the house of the vice mayor of Montawal town to search for drugs.Reports from the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao indicated that the two men were bodyguards of Vice Mayor Otto Montawal.The police personnel who carried out the search operation were forced to shoot the two men when they opened fire, sparking a shootout.The vice mayor was said have escaped just as the raiding team arrived at his residential compound in Barangay Talapas in Montawal town in the second district

MAGUINDANAO – Authorities foiled Wednesday an attempt to bomb the venue of a medical mission of Gov.

COTABATO CITY-- The city mayor on Sunday asked school officials to fly the Philippine flag in campuses at half-mast for five days in sympathy with the victims of the deadly bombing here last week.Halima Satol-Ibrahim, the city government’s chief information officer, said Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi has asked local school administrators to raise the flag at half-mast from Monday till Friday.In a statement, the mayor said the move is meant to honor the fatalities in the December 31 bombing here, Jonathan Tasic Torribiano and Mariam Ulama Cali, and show oneness with the 34 others who were hurt

COTABATO CITY - Authorities are bracing for possible diversionary attacks by violent extremists now that the hunt for two of several suspects in the December 31 bombing here is on.Two were killed while 37 others were wounded in the blast near the entrance to the Southseas Mall here that preceded the deactivation by bomb experts of another improvised explosive device found near a lottery outlet in the second floor of the establishment about an hour later.Superintendent Rolly Octavio of the Cotabato City police revealed on Saturday that they now have photos of the two bombers who left the bag

COTABATO CITY
-- Security officials are not discounting a vendetta angle in
Monday's bombing here, a possible retaliation for the deaths of four Islamic
militants, two of them foreigners, in a military operation nine days before.

COTABATO CITY – The head of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has condemned the
bombing in front of a mall here hours before New Year that left two dead and 34
others wounded.

Al Haj Murad,
MILF chieftain, in a statement, described the bombing as an act of cowardice,
inhuman and atrocious.

An evil act,
Murad said, adding that he was saddened it came in the thick of preparations
for the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

MAGUINDANAO --- The new presidential peace adviser who fought southern Muslim secessionists for decades endorsed the Bangsamoro Organic Law during a large multi-sectoral forum in the province Sunday.The retired Armed Forces chief Gen.

COTABATO CITY ---- One of the two fatalities in the bombing here Monday was an employee of a commission that authored the law meant to end decades of secessionist strife in the country’s restive south.The bombing near the entrance to the Southseas Mall along Don Rufino Alonzo Avenue here left 37 others wounded, five of them minors.Jonathan Tasic Torribiano, who was driver of Melanio Ulama of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), and the other fatality, Mariam Ulama Cali, died from shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies.Ulama is a timuay (chieftain) in central Mindanao’s in

COTABATO CITY –
Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(ARMM) has condemned the bombing in front of a mall here Monday, leaving two
persons dead and dozens injured.

Two persons
were killed and more than 40 others were hospitalized due to shrapnel injuries
in various parts of the body following a bomb explosion at about 1:50 p.m.,
more or less 10 hours before the New Year.