4 BIFF bombers surrender to the Army in Maguindanao

Maguindanao --- Four bomb-makers in the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered to authorities Wednesday, the first ever since the terror group emerged in 2010.The BIFF, which splintered from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front eight years ago, has been using the Islamic State flag as its revolutionary banner since 2014.The four BIFF members agreed to return to the fold of law through the joint intercession of Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division and Lt. Col. Alvin Iyog of the 2ndMechanize Battalion, a component-unit of 6thID.The four men, who asked to be identified only as Ahmed, Malik, Nazzer and Muktar, all in their early 20s, told reporters they decided to bolt from the BIFF due to its escalating vengeance on people who refuse to support its activities. The targets now include local Muslim communities that are against religious extremism. That is something bad. That is un-Islamic,’ Muktar said in Filipino, in heavy Maguindanaon accent.The four men, who admitted having undergone clandestine training on fabrication of improvised explosive devices, were among more than 50 BIFF bandits driven by soldiers away from their enclaves at the border of Salibo and Saidona towns in the second district of Maguindanao last Tuesday.They promised to start life anew before Dela Vega and Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu during a brief meeting at the Army’s Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat town on Wednesday afternoon. I assured them of livelihood and education support. My office can even provide their siblings free education for them to become educated, productive citizens, said Mangudadatu, chairman of the provincial peace and order council.Mangudadatu said he is thankful to Dela Vega for working out the surrender of the four BIFF members.The four militants readily confessed to their having planted roadside bombs along stretches of highways in Maguindanao in the past six months on instigation of their leaders.They also told reporters that they laid booby traps that hurt dozens of innocent people along farm-to-market roads in villages whose residents refuse to shell out protection money on regular basis.Mangudadatu said he is ready to provide the four men a moderate cleric to counsel them on Islamic principles on religious tolerance and fraternalism with non-Muslims to hasten their return into mainstream society.Meanwhile, the police and military arepreparing for a rampage by the BIFF following the takeover by soldiers of its two enclaves in the province early Tuesday.Soldiers are now in control of the BIFF camps, located at the border of Salibo and Saidona towns in the second district of Maguindanao.Six militants, initially identified only as Awar, Mantato, Sukarno, Badrudin, Izhak and Guiapar, were killed in firefights before the camps were cleared from BIFF occupation by personnel of the Army’s 2ndMechanize Battalion, a component-unit of the 6thInfantry Division.Dela Vega said Wednesday residents in the two towns have warned of a plot by the BIFF to avenge its losses in its latest encounters with the military.Dela Vega presented to reporters on Tuesday afternoon 18 firearms and about 100 kilos of gun parts and materials for improvised explosive devices that were found in two gunsmith shops in the BIFF camps.The BIFF, led by clerics who got booted from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for violation of MILF rules and other heinous offenses, operates in the fashion of the Islamic State.Its two camps the military now control were common lairs of the leaders of its three factions -- Abu Toraife, Bongos and Karialan. They are all wanted for multiple murders, frustrated murders, arson and other crimes.All three of them are Imams, eloquent in stoking public animosity to non-Muslims and in inciting dissent against the government.