5 BIFF terrorists killed in military offensive in Maguindanao
Local News • 21:15 PM Mon Mar 11, 2019
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By:
John Unson
Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, 6th ID chief (6th ID photo)
MAGUINDANAO --- Five militants were killed in the continuing bombardment of the lairs of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in swampy areas in this province.
The air and artillery strikes by the Army’s 6th Infantry Division against BIFF bandits in Shariff Saidona Mustapha, Maguindanao began Saturday.
The operation was launched after vigilant residents, among them Moro farmers, reported to Army units in the province seeing BIFF gunmen converging in Pinditen and Inaladan areas in Shariff Saidona, located in the second district of Maguindanao.
Members of the municipal peace and order councils in Shariff Saidona Mustapha and nearby municipalities said five BIFF gunmen, Karim Binua, Munir Masdal, Ganih Lantih, Bukhari Samad and Sanday Musib, all followers the radical BIFF leader Abu Toraife, were killed in the military’s aerial sorties the past two days.
Reports reaching the 6th ID and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also indicated that a big number of BIFF bandits from the faction led by Imam Karialan have fled to Pinditen and Inaladan after the military pounded their hideouts in Salibo town in Maguindanao with mortars last week.
Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the 6th ID told reporters Monday he has been receiving persistent feedback from local officials stating that five BIFF gunmen were killed in their operations the past two days, something he could not confirm without any actual count of enemy cadavers.
“But the reports being fed to us by people on the ground, among them vigilant barangay residents, indicate that there were indeed BIFF fatalities who were immediately buried by their companions,” Sobejana said.
Talks have also been spreading since Sunday night purporting that at least four followers of Abu Toraife, among them a relative named Tatak, were injured when an artillery round fired from an Army base in a nearby town landed and exploded near them.
Abu Toraife is leader of one of three factions in the BIFF, blamed for the recent deadly bombings in central Mindanao.
The BIFF, which uses the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as revolutionary banner, is not covered by all security compacts between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.