7 BIFF men surrender to Army

COTABATO CITY – Seven more members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered to the Army Sunday.

Major Gen. Alex Rillera, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, told reporters Tuesday the seven BIFF members yielded through the backchannel intercession by officials of the 33^rd Infantry Battalion and local officials in different towns in Maguindanao del Sur.

They turned in assorted firearms and improvised explosive devices before they renounced their membership with the BIFF in a simple rite at the 33^rd IB headquarters in Barangay Zapakan in Radjah Buayan, Maguindanao del Sur.

No fewer than 200 BIFF members have surrendered in batches to different units of 6^th ID in central Mindanao in the past 12 months.

All of them had been reintroduced to mainstream society via the division’s local reconciliation program for members of terror groups fashioned from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Three of the seven BIFF members who returned to the fold of law Sunday through the 33^rd IB were experts in fabrication of improvised explosive devices, according to sources from the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. 

The BIFF and its allies, the Al-khobar and the Dawlah Islamiya, are tagged in bombings, since 2014, of commercial establishments in central Mindanao and  buses after owners had refused to shell out protection money on a monthly basis.