Wanted terror group bomber killed in South Cotabato

KORONADAL CITY - A combined police-army team shot dead a wanted member of the Dawlah Islamiya terror group in a brief encounter in Tupi, South Cotabato.

The South Cotabato provincial police identified the fatality as Jalman Orandatang of the Ansar Khilafa Philippines group of the Dawlah Islamiya that uses the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as its banner.

Orandatang was killed in a joint police-military operation in Barangay Kablon  in Tupi, South Cotabato for resisting arrest.

Police personnel were to frisk and search him for a pistol along a stretch of a highway in Barangay Kablon, but he and his companion pulled out guns and opened fire, provoking a shootout.

Orandatang  died instantly from multiple gunshot wounds while his companion, a certain Jonny, was wounded in the gunfight.

The scene of the encounter is near the headquarters of the Philippine Army’s 5^th Special Forces Battalion in Barangay Kablon.

Residents in villages around said they noticed Orandatang and his companion observing the Army camp from a distance.

Orandatang, a bomb-maker was implicated in recent bomb attacks in General Santos City.

The Ansar Khilafa Philippines is known for extorting money from members of the business community in General Santos City to fund the activities of the Dawlah Islamiya.

The group has a reputation for bombing commercial establishments whose owners refuse to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.