2 Moro leaders killed in gun attacks
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 14:30 PM Mon Oct 24, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
Image from FB page of Datu Montawal, Maguindanao
COTABATO CITY - Two Moro leaders, a municipal councilor and a senior Moro National Liberation Front official, were killed in separate attacks in two adjoining towns in just 17 hours.
The municipal police office, headed by station chief Lt. Nurjhasier Sali, has launched manhunt against the suspect who shot dead with Mubarak Abubakar, a member of the Sangguniang Bayan in Montawal, Maguindanao, while buying smoked fish along a stretch of a highway at noontime Monday.
He was talking to a vendor in a roadside stall in Barangay Pagagawan in Montawal when men with pistols approached from behind and shot him in the head.
He was declared dead on arrival by attending physicians at the Deseret Surgimed Hospital in Kabacan town in North Cotabato, about five kilometers away from where he was attacked.
Probers from the Montawal Municipal Police Station are still trying to determine who the culprits were and their motive for killing the Moro municipal councilor.
Abubakar was killed exactly 17 hours after gunmen killed in nearby Midsayap, North Cotabato a Moro datu, Jordan Tayuan, a ranking leader of the MNLF. (see related story here)
Lt. Col. Rolly Oranza, chief of the Midsayap Municipal Police Station, told reporters Monday Jordan Tayuan died instantly from multiple bullet wounds.
Men with M16 assault rifles and .45 caliber pistols barged into his house in Purok Uno in Barangay Bual Sur in Midsayap at about 6:00 p.m. Sunday and shot him repeatedly at close range.
The suspects fled towards Datu Piang town in Maguindanao del Sur using a getaway black minivan parked right in front of the victim’s house.
Tayuan, who belongs to a big clan whose members are residing in North Cotabato’s adjoining Midsayap, Pikit and Aleosan towns, was a senior MNLF official in the province.
In a statement Monday, Bangsamoro Labor Minister Muslimin Sema, who is chairman of the MNLF, urged the police, relatives and followers of Tayuan to cooperate in identifying his killers.
Sema said Tayuan had actively participated in community-driven peace and security efforts in many areas in Cotabato province.