3 BIFF members surrender in North Cotabato

COTABATO CITY --- Three members of the outlawed Dawlah Islamiya, one of them a bomb courier, surrendered to the military Monday in Carmen, North Cotabato.

The 25-year-old Gagah Abdul and two companions, both minors, turned in a .50 caliber Barret rifle and two 9 millimeter machine pistols to Major Gen. Diosdado Carreon of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division during symbolic rite at the headquarters of the 602^nd Brigade in Carmen.

“We in the 6^th ID are glad each time we have events like this, a proof that the domestic peace efforts of local government units in areas under our jurisdiction are gaining momentum,” Carreon said.

The event was organized by officials of the 602^nd Brigade who convinced the three members of the Dawlah Islamiya to renounce their membership with the group via backchannel dialogues.

The Dawlah Islamiya is also known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, which uses the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as revolutionary banner.

One of the two minors who surrendered, a 17-year-old high school dropout, confessed to his being a courier of roadside bombs the BIFF used against the police and the military.

Carreon said officials of the Army’s 90^th Infantry Battalion under the control of the 602^nd Brigade were partly instrumental in convincing the three Dawlah Islamiya members, all from Pikit town in North Cotabato, to yield and pledge allegiance to the government.

More than a hundred Dawlah Islamiya gunmen from different towns in central Mindanao’s adjoining Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces have surrendered in batches to the 6^th ID since 2017.