7 BIFF terrorists killed in encounter with state forces
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 21:30 PM Wed Oct 23, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
Soldiers search for firearms in a hut in the middle of marshy area of Midsayap, North Cotabato after a clash with Moro rebels. (Army photo)
NORTH COTABATO --- A wanted bomber and six of his henchmen were killed in an encounter with soldiers in Midsayap town on Wednesday morning.
One of the fatalities is Mama Macalimbol of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, wanted for a series of recent bombings in central Mindanao.
Macalimbol has pending criminal cases in local courts.
Macalimbol and his cohorts were shot dead one after another in a brief encounter with combined personnel of the Midsayap municipal police and the Army’s 34th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Tumbras in Midsayap town in the first district of North Cotabato.
The police-Army team was dispatched to Barangay Tumbras to check on the reported presence there of Macalimbol and his followers but were forced to neutralize them when they opened fire while their hideout was being cordoned.
Investigators found rifles and explosives beside the cadavers of the slain BIFF members.
The BIFF operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and has been trying to sabotage the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The remains of Macalimbol and his followers were immediately turned over by the 34th IB to relatives, according to the Army's 6th Infantry Division.