Mindanao Armed Conflict

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao – Combined elements from 33rd Infantry (Makabayan) Battalion, 1st Mechanized Battalion, and local PNP operatives apprehended five (5) personalities for possessing unlicensed firearms and illegal drugs during an entrapment operation conducted at Barangay Tukanalipao, Mamasapano, Maguindanao on June 24, 2021.

SOUTH COTABATO --- Police agents seized components of improvised explosive devices from a suspected member of a local terror group arrested in Polomolok town Friday.

The 22-year-old Bono Sueb, a resident of Barangay Lapu in Polomolok, South Cotabato is now clamped down in a police detention facility.

He is a suspected member of the Dawlah Islamiya, a local terror group using the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as its banner.

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao - The Army’s 6th Infantry Division said Thursday it was not a military mortar fire that killed a pregnant Teduray woman in Barangay Tuayan, Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao Tuesday.

Major Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said Thursday there was no combat engagement between soldiers and terrorists in Barangay Tuayan and surrounding areas when a powerful explosion ripped through a farming enclave in the area.

MAGUINDANAO --- A pregnant woman was killed while two children were hurt in an explosion that rocked a highland farming village in Datu Hoffer town Tuesday.

The 21-year-old Rosita Kenendi, who belonged to the non-Moro ethnic Teduray community, died on the spot from blast injuries.

Talks are spreading around purporting that a mortar projectile fired from a distance landed near Kenendi’s house in  Barangay Tuayan in Datu Hofer and went off, killing her instantly.

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao – The suspected mastermind of the Yellow Bus Line (YBL) bus bombing in Tulunan, North Cotabato on January 27, 2021, and the burning of another YBL bus in M’Lang, North Cotabato on June 3, 2021, that killed a total of four (4) innocent civilians were captured by security forces during a joint law enforcement operation.

COTABATO CITY --- A combined military-police team arrested eight wanted Abu Sayyaf members, one of them a minor, in an operation in Jolo town in Sulu over the weekend, the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region said Monday.

The suspects, Sansibar Bensio, 38, Muayar Binda, 32, Alim Ahir Sukarno, 26,  Lugah Samsula, 37, Bunjiar Samsula, 35, Sanchez Amang, 58,  Ferdaus Omar, 19, and the 18-year-old Ramli Murhin, are now clamped down in a detention facility of the Sulu provincial police office.

COTABATO CITY --- State operatives killed four  Abu Sayyaf members, two of them wanted kidnappers, in a shootout in Jolo town in Sulu before dawn Sunday.

The fatalities, Injam Yadah and three others, two of them identified as Al-Al Sawadjaan and a certain Rauf, died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds.

Investigators from the Sulu provincial police are still trying to identify the fourth fatality.

NORTH COTABATO - The police and military are certain the Al-Khobar terror group was responsible for last week’s burning of a bus in Mlang town that caused the death of three passengers and hurt six others.

Police Col. Henry Villar, North Cotabato provincial police director, said Monday they are now validating persistent reports from residents of Mlang and in nearby towns purporting that the Al-Khobar was responsible for the arson attack.

NORTH COTABATO --- Tension remained high in Mlang municipality, where arsonists set a bus on fire Thursday, burning three passengers alive and causing six others third degree burns. 

Mlang Mayor Russel Abonado, chairperson of the municipal peace and order council, on Friday offered a P100,000 incentive in exchange for any information that would lead to the arrest of the culprits.

“I condemn the incident. We want a full closure on this,” Abonado said.

ZAMBONGA CITY - Combined elements of the military and police conducted a joint law enforcement operation in Barangay Paigoay, Tubaran at 1:20 a.m., May 29.