4 ISIS-inspired terrorists surrender in Sultan Kudarat
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 10:30 AM Thu Mar 9, 2023
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By:
John M. Unson
The four rebels turned in assorted firearms to the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion. (From 603rd Infantry Brigade)
COTABATO CITY --- Four more members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered Wednesday and promised to help convince former companions to return to the fold of law.
The BIFF operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and is blamed, along with allies Al-Khobar and Dawlah Islamiya, for all deadly bombings in central Mindanao since 2014.
Major Gen. Alex Rillera, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said Thursday the four BIFF members turned in firearms and anti-tank rockets before they renounced their membership with the group during a surrender rite in Barangay Kapaya in Bagumbayan, Sultan Kudarat.
The four men, whose names were temporarily withheld for their safety, yielded through the backchannel intercession of officials of the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion and the 603rd Infantry Brigade.
All four men confessed to their roles in collecting money and food for their group and bombing of public transportations whose owners had refused to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.
Units of 6th ID in central Mindanao’s adjoining Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Sarangani provinces and local executives had worked out the surrender in batches of 215 BIFF and Dawlah Islamiya members in the past 14 months.