Soldier dead, 2 hurt in BIFF attack; IEDs found along highway
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 19:45 PM Sat Nov 5, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
Army bomb experts inspect the spot where IEDs were found Saturday morning.
COTABATO CITY - A soldier was killed while two others were wounded when local terrorists fired at an Army team out on a humanitarian mission in Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao del Sur late Friday.
Major Gen. Roy Galido, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Brig. Gen. John Guyguyon of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region on Saturday separately condemned the atrocity, perpetrated by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
Galido said the slain soldier, Pfc. Jomar Saladar and his companions wounded in the attack, Sgt. Allan Rey Estanda and Pvt. Carla Araña, belongs to the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion.
Galido said they were in a group tasked to monitor the level of water in a river underneath a vital bridge connecting stretches of the Cotabato-Isulan Highway in Barangay Labo-Labo II in Datu Hofer town, where riverside villages got inundated last week after it overflowed due to heavy rains spawned by Tropical Storm Paeng.
“They were out on a community flood protection mission,” Galido said.
The soldiers that the BIFF attacked were also securing heavy equipment being used in the repair of the Labo-Labo bridge that rampaging floodwaters damaged as a result of last week's Tropical Storm Paeng onslaught.
On Saturday morning, bomb experts promptly deactivated two powerful improvised explosive devices found near the entrance gate of the Mindanao State University-Maguindanao Campus in the town proper of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte.
Local residents have urged the PRO-BAR to investigate extensively on who could have left the IEDs in the area and who the target of the supposed bomb attack was.