Slain Dawlah member was bomb-maker
Local News • 18:45 PM Sat Aug 6, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
The bomb components found in the hideout of Khamhed Akan Kambal. (Photo from 6th ID)
COTABATO CITY - The bomb-maker killed in a clash with soldiers Friday in Ampatuan, Maguindanao was the 11th explosives fabrication expert the military had neutralized since January.
The slain terrorist, Khamhed Akan Kambal, belonged to the Dawlah Islamiya, tagged in recent deadly bombings in central Mindanao.
Major Gen. Roberto Capulong of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and Brig. Gen. Arthur Cabalona separately told reporters Saturday their units are guarding against possible retaliations by the Dawlah Islamiya and its ally, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, for the death of Kambal.
Both terror groups, fashioned from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, have a reputation for venting ire on civilian targets for losses in clashes with pursuing state security forces.
Kambal was killed in a brief gunfight with personnel of the 40th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Dicalungan in Ampatuan town, dispatched to check on reports by villagers about his presence in the area.
His cohort, Nasrudin Salih Blah, voluntarily yielded after Kambal was felled with rifle shots by soldiers approaching their hideout in a secluded area in Barangay Dicalungan.
Blah is now in the joint custody of the 40th IB and the local police, undergoing interrogation.
Soldiers confiscated from them a .45 caliber pistol, improvised explosive devices, components for deadly booby traps and keypad-type mobile phones needed for blasting contraptions of home-made bombs that can be detonated from a distance via telecommunication signal.
The 6th ID, in a statement Saturday, said it was Moro community elders who informed the 40th IB of the exact location of Kambal in Barangay Dicalungan.
Units of 6th ID had earlier killed, in one operation after another in Maguindanao and in North Cotabato provinces since January, eleven Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF bomb-makers.
The operations that led to their deaths were assisted by units of the Maguindanao Provincial Police Office, the Police Regional Office-12, and local officials.