Soldier, 3 Dawlah gunmen killed in Ampatuan hostilities
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 07:45 AM Tue Mar 3, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
COTABATO CITY --- A soldier and three members of the Dawlah Islamiya, one of them a cleric, were killed in an encounter Monday in Tuayan area in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.
The Army fatality, Sgt. Irvin Alberastine of the 57th Infantry Battalion, and his companions were on their way to check the reported presence of gunmen in the upland Tuayan area when they were attacked by Dawlah Islamiya bandits, sparking a gunfight.
Senior members of the municipal peace and order councils in Maguindanao’s adjoining Ampatuan and Shariff Aguak towns have confirmed the death of a preacher, Ustadz Kamaruh, and two others, initially identified only as Samin and Rida in the incident.
The slain bandits were followers of the radical preacher Ustadz Karialan, who is wanted for a spate of deadly bomb attacks in central Mindanao in the past four years.
The Dawlah Islamiya, also known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters that operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has been markedly been trying to undermine the current peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Another serviceman of the 57th IB was wounded in Monday’s clash in Ampatuan, now confined in a hospital. The Dawlah Islamiya has a reputation for bombing civilian targets and for attacking unarmed off-duty soldiers while out on weekend pass, in markets and on their way home from duty.
The hostilities in Tuayan was preceded by the fatal ambush the day before in Barangay Rebuken in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao of Cpl. James Earl Matulac.
Matulac was assigned at the headquarters of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town in the same province. He was on riding a motorcycle en route to his hometown, Pigcawayan, North Cotabato, when he was attacked by pistol wielding suspects, killing him on the spot.
Matulac’s motorcycle-riding assailants immediately sped away as he fell on the concrete pavement after they shot him from behind with .45 caliber pistols.
At least 31 off-duty soldiers have been killed in similar attacks in the central Mindanao’s adjoining Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces and in Cotabato City since 2016.