Authorities intensify intelligence operations against local militant groups

MAGUINDANAO --- Authorities continued the hunt for foreign terrorist Muawiyah and his Moro coddlers after eluding pursuing soldiers who raided their hideouts in Datu Salibo, Maguindanao last week.Among those who had reportedly escaped from Barangays Andavit and Gawang, both in Datu Salibo town, were five ethnic Maranaws who belong to the originally Lanao del Sur-based Dawlah Islamiya, now allied with the equally radical Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).Mauwiyah, also known as Hamoody Ali Mohammad Ali bin Abdurahman and Suhardono, is reputedly of mixed Singaporean-Indonesian descent, who started as member of the Jemaah Islamiya, the cell of Al-Qaeda in Indonesia.He mysteriously showed up in Maguindanao last year to help a radical BIFF faction train recruits in handling and fabrication of improvised explosive devices.Senior officials of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division on Sunday said intelligence units of its component brigades and battalions have continued tracking down Mauwiyah and his BIFF coddlers Salahudin Hassan, also known as Commander Salah, and companions Abdulmalik Esmael, Bashir Ungab, Nasser Adil and Ansari Yunos.Hassan and his four companions, all ethnic Maguindanaons, were implicated in the deadly September 2016 bombing in Davao City that killed 15 and injured more than 50 others.Local officials in Salibo and Datu Piang town, also in Maguindanao, said on Sunday that Mauwiyah and his BIFF protectors had escaped to the marshy border of Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces on March 14 after the military shelled their hideout with 105 Howitzer cannons and 81 millimeter mortars in an operation that commenced two days before.Brig. Gen. Ariel dela Vega, commander of 6thID, said barangay folks and elected officials in Maguindanao and North Cotabato are now helping locate the group, implicated in more than a dozen bomb attacks in central Mindanao in recent months.Senior members of different municipal peace and order councils in the two provinces said more than 30 BIFF bandits were killed in last week’s military air, ground and artillery offensives in Salibo.BIFF spokesman Abu Misry Mama was quick to deny their losses, dismissing the casualty estimates as government propaganda meant to demoralize their forces holding out in areas far from Salibo.Army infantry and mechanized units that cleared Salibo’s adjoining Barangays Andavit, Gawang and Tee from BIFF occupation pulled out on March 14 after three days of intermittent encounters with members of the outlawed group.The BIFF is enforcing a ruthless Taliban-style justice system in areas where it operates. It has been boasting allegiance to the Independent State of Iraq and Syria.The fanatical BIFF is using the black ISIS flag as its revolutionary banner.Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, regional police director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, on Sunday said they would need the help of local government units in Maguindanao in building airtight criminal cases against Commander Salah and his companions.Sindac said the provincial police offices in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur have intensified surveillance of the activities of the Dawlah Islamiya and the BIFF to forestall possible retaliations for their losses in recent encounters with the military.Army intelligence sources and local officials in Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao, both component provinces of ARMM, said the Dawlah Islamia, also known as the Maute terror group, and the BIFF lost no fewer than 50 men in encounters with soldiers from December until last week. These terrorists have penchant for attacking civilian targets when they retaliate, Sindac said.Dela Vega said the ARMM police and the 6thID are helping each other neutralize misguided ISIS-styled jihadist groups through intelligence cooperation.