22 BIFF members surrender to police
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 15:45 PM Wed Mar 22, 2023
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By:
John M. Unson
The 22 surrenderees received initial cash assistance and food supplies from various benefactors. (From PRO-BAR)
COTABATO CITY - A big group of local terrorists, nine of them experts in fabrication of home-made bombs, surrendered to the police Tuesday.
The 22 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters turned in assorted firearms and components for improvised explosive devices during a surrender rite Tuesday at the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Camp SK Pendatun in nearby Parang town in Maguindanao del Norte.
Police Brig. Gen. Guyguyon, director of PRO-BAR, said Wednesday the group, comprised of terrorists from different towns in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur, agreed to surrender and pledge allegiance to the government through the backdoor intercession of police units in both provinces and local executives.
No fewer than 80 members of the BIFF and its allies, the Al-Khobar and the Dawlah Islamiya, surrendered to PRO-BAR in the past 14 months.
“We are grateful to all the people who helped convince these 22 local terrorists and those who yielded ahead of them for helping us work out their return to the fold of law in batches,” Guyguyon said.
Nine of the 22 men who surrendered to PRO-BAR Tuesday were trained in fabrication of IEDs, local officials present in the event told reporters.
The BIFF, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is blamed for all deadly bombings in central Mindanao since 2014.
The group has a reputation for bombing commercial establishments and buses whose owners refuse to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.