4 more members renounce membership with outlawed BIFF

COTABATO CITY --- Four more members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, two of them henchmen of the long wanted Kagui Karialan, surrendered Wednesday.

They yielded through the efforts of the Army’s 92^nd Infantry Battalion and local leaders in Datu Hoffer Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.

Major Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, said Thursday the four men, Ustadz, Magdusa, Kano and Abu Zubair, shall be reintroduced into mainstream society with the help of different line agencies and the Bangsamoro regional government.

“We can’t reveal their correct full names because the BIFF has that practice of persecuting members who have availed of our domestic peace and reconciliation program for them,” Uy said.

The four men are followers of Kagui Karialan, leader of one of three factions in the BIFF. He is wanted for more than 30 high-profile cases pending in courts, including deadly bomb attacks in central Mindanao since 2014.

The four men turned in two .30 caliber Garand rifles, an M16 assault rifle and a 5.56 caliber Ultimax light machinegun to Brig. Gen. Ignatius Patrimonia, commander of the 1^st Brigade Combat Team, during simple surrender rite Wednesday in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao.

More than a hundred members of the BIFF, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, surrendered to different units of 6^th ID in the past eight months.