Mindanao clashes kill 4 soldiers, injure 17
MANILA: Four soldiers were killed and 17 others wounded, all members of an elite Army special forces, in an encounter with members of the Daesh-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists on the island province of Sulu in Mindanao, the military confirmed on Saturday.
The clash coincided with another encounter on Friday that saw government forces kill five members of the militant Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in Sultan Kudarat province, a senior military officer also reported.
Meanwhile, Major Arvin Encinas, the spokesman of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, reported that members of an Army special forces team clashed with the Abu Sayyaf on Thursday to stem transmissions among low-income workers who can’t afford to stay home.
As of Saturday afternoon, at least 42 of the new cases were linked to door-to-door sellers hired by Richway, a Seoul-based health product provider.
Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said the spread of the virus among Richway sellers was particularly alarming as most of them are in their 60s and 70s. in a remote village the town of Patikul, Sulu.
Encinas said the soldiers were on a security patrol when they clashed with 40 Abu Sayyaf terrorists as he reported thus in a text message to media: “The firefight lasted for about 40 minutes and the enemy later escaped and scampered towards the southeast.”
The Abu Sayyaf has gained notoriety through a spate of kidnap-for-ransom cases since the early 2000s that have often been marred by the beheading of their foreign and Filipino hostages.
The military also blamed the Abu Sayyaf and the Maute Group that both pledged allegiance to the Daesh leaders in the Middle East for lay
Thailand on Saturday reported two new coronavirus cases and no new deaths, taking its total confirmed cases to 3,104 infections ing siege on Marawi, the capital city of Lanao del Sur, in May 2017.
Daesh leaders ordered the Abu Sayyaf and the Maute Group to lay siege on Mawawi, capture it and convert it into a caliphate for use in their expansin plans in Southeast Asia, the military pointd out.
Also on Thursday, government forces clashed with members the BIFF in the town of Lambayong, Sultan Kudarat, according to Colonel Joel Mamon, the head of the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade.
Mamon also reported soldiers captured at least 15 assorted heavy firearms as well as captured 14 of the BIFF members, headed by Guiamal and 58 deaths since the outbreak began in January. The two cases are men who returned from Russia and Kuwait and are in quarantine, where most of Thailand’s recent cases have been detected, said Panprapa Yongtrakul, an assistant spokeswoman for the government’s COVID-19 Administration Centre. There are 2,971 patients who have recovered.
Galmak, when they ran out of ammunitions.
The military said BIFF was founded by the late veteran field commander Ameril Umbra Kato of the Moro Islamic Libertation Front (MILF) seceded from with about 1,000 of his followers for unresolved differences with with the front leaders over the conduct of their peace negotiations with the government.
The MILF later signed an historic agreement with the government that led to the Congress approval of the Bangsamoro Organic Law and its signing by President Duterte aimed at helping bring just and lasting peace to strife-torn Mindanao.