Schools shut for fear of BIFF rampage over death of 15 militants

MAGUINDANAO - Officials shut down schools in four Maguindanao towns due to tension sparked by Sunday’s airstrikes that destroyed a bomb-making facility of terrorists in the Liguasan Delta.Personnel of the Army’s 33rdInfantry Battalion recovered firearms, components for improvised explosive devices and roadside bombs in the makeshift building destroyed by rockets launched from helicopter gunships.Senior education officials in Maguindanao province said Monday classes in schools along the Liguasan Delta had been suspended for security reasons.The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, which lost 15 members in the airstrikes, is feared for its practice of venting ire on civilian targets to avenge losses in encounters with the military.The group is using the black Islamic State flag as revolutionary banner.The affected schools in Pagalungan, Datu Montawal, Rajah Buayan and General Pendatun towns are located along the Liguasan Delta.Sources from the provincial office of the Department of Education in Maguindanao said Monday the temporary shutdown of schools affected 1,438 elementary pupils and almost a hundred high school students.Lawyer Rasol Mitmug, Jr., regional education secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said elementary teachers in the four towns had been directed to help protect their pupils from harm.Local officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they have been receiving reports from constituents purporting that four of the 15 slain BIFF bandits were foreigners.Brig. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division, said Monday their units in the adjoining Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces are now trying to validate the reported deaths of foreign terrorists.The targets of the airstrikes before dawn Sunday in Kalbugan area in Pagalungan and at the border of General Pendatun and Lambayong town in Sultan Kudarat were BIFF bomb-makers Taib Dinggo and Abu Walid.They were both trained in fabrication of IEDS by the slain Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, most known as Marwan.