Military anticipating retaliation from group of slain drug dealers
Local News • 16:30 PM Mon Feb 24, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
MAGUINDANAO --- Authorities are bracing for possible retaliations by a heavily-armed drug trafficking gang that lost two members in an encounter with anti-narcotics agents last week.
The fatalities, Sindatuk and Nurhamin, both surnamed Pendaliday, were known errands of their relative, Abdullah Pendaliday, alias “Commander Grasscutter.”
They perished in a brief encounter in Barangay Malala in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao with combined agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and personnel of the 40th Infantry Battalion and the Maguindanao provincial police.
Pendaliday, also wanted for heinous offenses, including cattle theft, robbery and propagation of marijuana plants, escaped while his two followers traded shots with the inter-agency team that tried to corner them in an isolated area in Barangay Malala.
Major Gen.Diosdado Carreon of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division said Monday units of the 601st Brigade that has jurisdiction over Datu Paglas and nearby towns in the second district of Maguindanao are anticipating retaliations by the long wanted Pendaliday, whose group has links with the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
Pendaliday, the target of the joint operation of the PDEA-BARMM and members of the 40th Infantry Battalion and the Maguindanao provincial police, reportedly fled to the border of Datu Paglas and Tulunan town in North Cotabato.
The PDEA-led operation to arrest Pendaliday was launched early Thursday after residents of Barangay Malala reported his presence in the area, meeting contacts.
The elusive Pendaliday thrice eluded entrapments laid in the past four years by units of the Army’s 601st Brigade and the provincial police.
Juvenal Azurin, director of PDEA-BARRMM, said they recovered an assault rifle from each of the slain followers of Pendaliday.
PDEA-BARMM agents also found shabu in small sachets in their trouser pockets.
Azurin said they also seized two motorcycles in the scene of the encounter.