Three ARMM cops hurt in Maute nighttime attack

LANAO DEL SUR --- Three policemen were injured when Maute terrorists ambushed late Saturday a police convoy in Pantar town in Lanao del Norte.Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), identified the wounded officers as Chief Inspector William Santos, Senior Inspector Jans Vladimir Hilarion and PO1 Danny Giovani Mapula.They sustained bullet wounds when terrorists shot their vehicles with assault rifles while travelling through a stretch of a highway in Barangay Kalanganan in Pantar.Pantar, also a predominantly Maranaw town in Lanao del Norte in Region 10, is not too distant from Marawi City.Sindac said the wounded policemen, who all belong to the ARMM regional police, are now confined in a hospital.The ambush occurred a day after personnel of the ARMM police arrested in Masiu, Lanao del Sur Ominta Farhana Romato-Maute, mother of wanted cultists Omar and Abdullah, founder of the outlawed Dawlah Islamiya.The Dawlah Islamiya, comprised of Maute and Abu Sayyaf gunmen, operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.The arrest of the Maute clan matriarch happened five days after Cayamora, the father of Omar and Abdullah, was nabbed by soldiers in Davao City.Also arrested along with Cayamora is his second wife, Kongan Balawag.Sindac said personnel of the ARMM police are bracing for more attacks by Maute terrorists to avenge the arrest of the Maute family elders.