4 BIFF bandits perish in Maguindanao clashes

MAGUINDANAO ----Four members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters were killed while two soldiers were wounded in clashes in the province on Sunday.The BIFF uses the Islamic State flag as revolutionary banner and is not covered by the now 21-year Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.The first two BIFF fatalities, Muktar Undi and Orai Sangkay, were killed in a gunfight with personnel of the 21stMechanized Company in Barangay Pamalian in Saidona town in Maguindanao.The hostilities erupted when BIFF gunmen attacked soldiers dispatched to Barangay Pamalian to check on the reported presence of militants collecting money from villagers.The soldiers, led by 1Lt. Juvylito Lisondra, returned fire and engaged their attackers in an hour-long gunfight.The BIFF bandits who ambushed Lisondra and his companions retreated to the Liguasan Delta when they sensed that reinforcements from the Army’s 57thInfantry Battalion and the 64thDivision Reconnaissance Company of the 6thInfantry Division were closing in.Key members of different municipal peace and order councils in the second district of Maguindanao province confirmed the deaths of Undi and Sangkay in the encounter.Two soldiers belonging to the 21stMechanized Company - Staff Sgt. Alfredo Tambo and Private 1stClass Ian Cajeta - were wounded in another gunfight several hours later with marauding BIFF bandits in Barangay Elian in nearby Datu Saudi, Maguindanao.Tambo and Cajeta were in a platoon sent to patrol in open fields in Barangay Elian that BIFF members attacked from two directions, sparking a gunbattle.Two more terrorists, whom Barangay folk identified as Aliman Bontah and Idris Udar, reportedly perished in the gunfight.Captain Arvin Encinas, public affairs officer of 6thID, said the wounded Tambo and Cajeta were immediately rushed to a hospital by their companions.The trouble on Sunday in Maguindanao’s adjoining Saidona and Datu Saudi towns preceded the skirmishes between BIFF bandits and soldiers in Pusao area at the border of the two towns on Monday morning.Local officials said the encounter was provoked by the BIFF’s incursion into a farming enclave there to collect rice and money from villagers.Encinas said the tactical maneuvers of 6thID in the second district of Maguindanao are law-enforcement operations meant to weaken the BIFF.The group, which has three factions, espouses hatred to the government and stokes public animosity to non-Muslims.