Task Force Central guarding against terror attacks

MAGUINDANAO -- The Army-led Joint Task Force Central has tightened security in central Mindanao following a series of attacks by Islamic militants on military detachments in this province.

Members of the Dawlah Islamiya terror group shot with 40 millimeter grenade projectiles two detachments of the Army’s 57^th Infantry Battalion in Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao last weekend.

The attack was preceded by the harassment by the group of soldiers guarding two detachments of the Army’s 38^th Infantry Battalion in the province.

Major Gen. Diosdado Carreon, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, whose units comprise the anti-terror Task Force Central, said Tuesday the attacks could be in retaliation for the group’s heavy losses in recent clashes with soldiers in central Mindanao’s adjoining Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces.

The Dawlah Islamiya, also known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, is operating in the Fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The group is blamed for all deadly bomb attacks in central Mindanao in the past four years.

Units of 6^th ID took over two weeks ago all of Dawlah Islamiya’s enclaves in Shariff Saidona, Maguindanao via tactical maneuvers that exacted fatalities on the terror group that uses the ISIS flag as revolutionary banner.

The Dawlah Islamiya has members trained by foreign terrorists in fabrication of improvised explosive devices that they use against non-military targets to avenge the deaths of companions in encounters with soldiers.

Talks have been spreading around since last week purporting that the estranged leaders of the three factions in the BIFF, the radical clerics Bongos, Karialan and Toraife have fused ranks after the fall of their camps in Shariff Saidona following three years of separation due to ideological differences.

Barangay officials and traditional Moro leaders in areas where the BIFF has strong presence said the three Islamic theologians, all eloquent in fomenting hatred to non-Muslims, have conceded to Karialan’s sole leadership of the reunited BIFF.

Toraife and Bongos are now Karialan’s deputy and chief of staff, respectively, according to the sources.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources from the municipal peace and order councils in different towns in the second district of Maguindanao said a wanted bomber, Salahudin Hassan, was named operation officer of the group.

Army Major Arvin Encinas, spokesman of the Western Mindanao Command, said they are still trying to validate the reports from local executives in Maguindanao.