Mindanao Armed Conflict

ALEOSAN, North Cotabato --- The police and military are still trying to identify the persons behind Tuesday’s bombing of a passenger bus here that left a child dead and hurt six others.

The management of the Mindanao Star Bus, operating in the Cotabato-Davao route that straddles North Cotabato, Maguindanao and Davao del Sur provinces, said it has not received any extortion demand from any group.

ALEOSAN, North Cotabato--- The five-year-old child hurt in the bombing of a passenger bus here on Tuesday morning has died in the hospital in Cotabato City, the police said.

The fatality was one of seven passengers injured when a powerful blast ripped through the Mindanao Star Bus carrying them and other passengers while at a stretch of a national highway here.

PIKIT, North Cotabato --- The four policemen wounded in a deadly clash Wednesday morning with suspected motorcycle thieves in Barangay Gokotan here are now out of danger, recuperating in hospital.

Police Lt. Xiart Gatinao, Cpl. James Jay Belonio, the Patrolmen Aden Cocal and Christian Carl Ansing were injured when gunmen shot them with rifles and an M60 machinegun while approaching a yard in Barangay Gokotan where policemen and soldiers found 442 motorcycles.

The recovered motorcycles are now in the custody of the North Cotabato provincial police.

PIKIT, North Cotabato - Five suspected motorcycle thieves were killed while three policemen and a civilian were hurt in a clash in Barangay Gokotan here on Wednesday morning.

The fatalities - Badrudin Masulot Dalid, the female Arbaya Dalid Panizares, Asraf Dalid Masulot, Bunta Kabantu and a still unidentified male - died from multiple gunshot wounds.

The gunfight reportedly erupted when they opened fire at a joint police-Army team dispatched to validate reports purporting that they are keeping hundreds of motorcycles in Barangay Gokotan here.

TACURONG CITY --- Five religious extremists, four of them bomb-makers, and two members of the New People’s Army together surrendered on Sunday, a regional military official said Tuesday.

Major Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, said the seven men turned in firearms and explosives to the 40^th Infantry Battalion before they renounced their membership with their respective groups.

KORONADAL CITY --- Gunmen killed with assault rifles two villagers in an attack late Monday in an interior barangay in Surallah, South Cotabato.

The fatalities --- Helen Aspera, 54, and her nephew, the 34-year-old Gentry Domingo --- died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

Two men armed with M16 assault rifles reportedly crawled near the house of the victims, shot them through open windows and escaped.

Informants have confided to police investigators that Aspera was locked in a land dispute with another family.

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao - The 4th Division Commander and Chief of Staff of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) Karialan Faction identified as Zukarno Guilil alias Motorola was killed in an armed encounter against Joint Task Force Central (JTFC) Forces at Brgy Ganta, Shariff Saydona Mustapha, Maguindanao early morning today, December 26, 2021.

TANTANGAN, South Cotabato --- A grenade explosion ripped through a stretch of a highway here Friday night, causing panic among villagers in houses nearby.

Reports received by Brig. Gen. Alexander Tagum, regional director for the Soccsksargen region, showed that one of two men on a motorcycle together hurled a grenade at a red Mitsubushi pick-up truck parked along a portion of the Koronadal-Tacurong Highway in Barangay Dumadalig here and sped away as the explosive went off.

The pickup truck, bearing license plates NET 3147, was damaged.

KORONADAL CITY --- Four New Peoples Army guerrillas implicated in the burning heavy equipment of construction companies and bomb attacks surrendered to authorities and pledged allegiance to government.

The first to yield were two NPAs who turned in their firearms to officials of the Army’s 5^th Special Forces Battalion during a simple surrender rite Wednesday at Barangay Ned in Lake Sebu town in South Cotabato.

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao - Two former members of the Communist Terrorist Group decided to return to the folds of the law as they surrendered to government troops in Sitio Lower Salban, Brgy Ned, Lake Sebu, South Cotabato on December 07, 2021.