Dawlah Islamiya, BIFF tagged in bus bombing

KORONADAL CITY - Authorities are certain the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters together perpetrated the bombing at noontime Monday of a bus in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat that hurt seven passengers.

Reports have been circulating in central Mindanao since Monday night purporting that the bombing was to avenge the deaths of 17 leaders of both groups in clashes with pursuing soldiers and policemen in central Mindanao in the past 16 months.

Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg, director of the Police Regional Office-12, said Tuesday the wounded passengers of the double-decker Husky Bus, John Ruskin Dela Cruz, 15, Jeffrey Dela Cruz, 14, Javiren Batican, 13, Ramsiya Ibad Alilayah, 60, Nur Fatima Deocampong Macaantao, 25, Edgar Cachoco, 56, and the 57-year-old Analia Bagundang, are now confined in a hospital.

“Cases will be filed against the culprits once identified. Our intelligence units and counterparts in the Philippine Army are now working together on that,” Macaraeg said.  

The seven blast victims were seated close to each other in the first deck of the bus, then parked at the public terminal in Barangay Kalawag in Isulan, capital town of Sultan Kudarat province, when one of two improvised explosive devices planted inside went off. 

Army and police ordnance experts told reporters the IED that exploded and a smaller one found in the bus were identical with those that the Dawlah Islamiya and the BIFF had used in recent bombings of buses and commercial establishments in central Mindanao after owners had refused to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.

Local executives in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces told reporters Tuesday tipsters have confirmed that the bombing of the Husky Bus was also a desperate attempt to stir an impression that the surrender of 236 Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF members to 6^th ID and PRO-12 in recent months has not weakened the capability of both outlawed groups to perpetrate terror attacks.

Units of PRO-12 and 6^th ID had killed 17 ranking Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF members in one encounter after another since January 2022, among them Abdulkareem Lumbatan Hashim and the long wanted Danny Cabakungan, known by aliases Jacket and Magnetic, respectively.

Hashim and Cabakungan were tagged in high-profile crimes, including multiple murder, cattle theft, possession of high-powered firearms and home-made bombs, extortion and drug trafficking.

Hashim was killed in a shootout with combined personnel of the Army’s 1^st Mechanized Brigade and agents from PRO-12 in the bus terminal in Tacurong City in late January.

Cabakungan and four followers perished in a gunfight with members of PRO-12 in Barangay Dungos in Tulunan town in Cotabato last April 12.