No clues yet on ambush of Lanao sur governor
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 19:15 PM Sat Feb 18, 2023
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By:
John M. Unson
Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr. (Lanao Sur governor's office file photo)
MARAWI CITY --- Authorities are now validating tips from local sectors that either a local drug ring, or members of the Dawlah Islamiya were behind Friday’s ambush of the convoy of Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr.
Adiong and his immediate aide, Ali Tabao, were both wounded in the attack that left four of their companions, three of them policemen, dead.
The four fatalities, Police Patrolmen Juraiz Adiong, Aga Sumandar and Jalil Cosain, and a driver named Hassanor Pundaodaya, died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.
Brig. Gen. John Guyguyon, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters Saturday investigators have tapped the support of local executives and Maranao religious leaders in identifying their attackers.
“Initially we have learned from informants that around ten men were behind it,” Guyguyon said.
Talks have been spreading around stating that members of the Dawlah Islamiya, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, perpetrated the ambush.
Adiong and his escorts were on their way to Wao, Lanao del Sur when the culprits, positioned at one side of the highway in Maguing town in the same province, opened fire with assault rifles.
Adiong was hit in his waist while Tabao sustained a gunshot wound in his foot.
Local officials, among them North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza and Lamitan City Mayor Roderick Furigay, took turns expressing sympathy for Adiong and the families of his companions killed in the incident.
“We are hoping that the police and military can identify those behind the atrocity,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said thousands of her constituents benefitted from relief operations by the Lanao del Sur provincial government when strong earthquakes repeatedly jolted upland towns in Cotabato province three years ago.
Furigay said he is optimistic that PRO-BAR and the Army’s 103rd Brigade and local officials in Lanao del Sur can, together, put an immediate closure to the incident.