Mindanao Armed Conflict

ISABELA CITY, Basilan  – Weary of incessant fighting and loss of innocent lives, two barangays in Tabuanlasa Municipality finally concluded their decade-long clan wars, or locally known as rido, as they signed a peace covenant here at the Headquarters 4th Special Forces Battalion, Barangay Cabunbata, Isabela City on Wednesday, 24 February, where twenty assorted firearms were also yielded by local officials and barangay leaders.

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Operatives from the police and Joint Task Force-Sulu have arrested nine women with strong ties to Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) leaders and members in simultaneous joint law enforcement operations in the said province.

Maj. Gen. William Gonzales, JTF-Sulu commander, announced this only on Tuesday although the suspects were arrested Friday during intelligence-driven law enforcement operations by way of service of warrants of arrest in the towns of Jolo and Patikul.

MAGUINDANAO --- Authorities have tagged the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Thursday’s foiled roadside bombing in Shariff Aguak town.

The improvised explosive device, rigged with a blasting contraption that can be detonated from a distance, was fashioned from an 81 millimeter mortar round and two anti-tank rockets.

“It was a `signature IED’of the BIFF. The bombing attempt occurred after seven BIFF members surrendered a week before in another municipality in Maguindanao,” Major Gen. Juvymax Uy of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division said Sunday.

LANAO DEL SUR ---- Three Maute gunmen were killed as soldiers took over a lair of terrorists in Barangay Bawang in Madamda Sunday.

The Maute terror group operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The hostilities erupted when Maute terrorists opened fire at personnel of the Army’s 1^st Scout Ranger Battalion dispatched to check an enemy encampment in Barangay Bawang, a hinterland area in Madamba, Lanao del Sur.

MAGUINDANAO --- The police and military again urged residents of South Upi Friday to help end the deadly armed conflicts in the municipality that state security entities alone cannot solve.

The Army’s 6^th Infantry Division pounded with artillery and bombs dropped by Air Force planes the surroundings of South Upi in a series of offensives this week to flush out forces of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters attacking hapless Teduray villages in the area.

LANAO DEL SUR --- Tension has spread around the now supposedly booming and peaceful Malabang town following the fatal ambush of an uncle of its mayor Wednesday.

Rauf Malawani, uncle of the first-termer Mayor Tomas Macapodi of Malabang, Lanao del Sur, died on the spot from bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

The victim, a Maranao community leader, campaigned extensively for Macapodi when he first aspired for Malabang’s mayoral post during the May 2019 elections.

NORTH COTABATO --- A combined police-military team killed a wanted regional New People’s Army official and two commanders in a brief clash in President Roxas town on Monday morning.

Buenaventura Dawal, executive committee chairman of the NPA’s self-styled Southern Mindanao Regional Command, and two companions, Menandro Villanueva and a certain Alambro, all died on the spot.

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao - One of the commanders of terrorists who burned a police vehicle and shot a Catholic church and houses in the town proper of Datu Piang in December surrendered on Saturday.

Nino Ebrahim, a henchman of Imam Karialan, and his ten followers pledged allegiance to the government through the joint intercession of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Army’s 6^th Infantry Battalion and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Two members of a militant extremist group tagged in a series of bombings in Central Mindanao were killed in a foiled escape in Maguindanao on Thursday.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Debold Sinas, citing reports coming from the PNP Command Center said Rasul Dubpaleg and Bhadz K. Dubpaleg, both members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), were earlier arrested by police and military team in Rajah Buayan, Maguindanao around 10 a.m.

COTABATO CITY --- Seven persons, two of them women, linked to drug rings were killed in separate incidents in the neighboring Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces Saturday.

One of the seven fatalities was identified as Akmad Manampen, a high-value target of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Manampen had eluded an attempt by PDEA-BARMM agents to clamp him down in an anti-narcotics operation in Cotabato City early on.