4 terrorists killed in Mindanao encounter

MANILA: Four members of a Daesh-inspired breakaway Moro rebel group were killed while three others were wounded in a clash with government forces in Maguindanao province in Mindanao, according to a ranking military officer.

Major General Juvymax Uy, the chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the rebels belonged to the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), who planned to plant improvised explosive devices along a highway in the town of Shariff Saidona Mustapha, Maguindanan on Sunday.

But Uy said concerned villagers reported the presence of the armed men in their community to the military which immediate dispatched soldiers to the scene.

He added that while on their way, the terrorists fired at the soldiers, resulting in a heavy exchange of gunfire for about 20 minutes.

The terrorists later withdrew and brought with them their dead a wounded when they sensed the arrival of more government reinforcements, Uy said, citing the testimony of villagers who witnessed their escape.

The military said the BIFF is a breakaway group founded by the late veteran field commander Ameril Umbra Kato, who seceded from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) following major differences 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 resulted in the passage by Congress of the Bangsamoro Organic Law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte, which aimed to bring just and lasting peace to resource-rich but strife-torn Southern Philippines.

The law mandated the government to set up a new political entity known as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) whose initial territory came from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), composed of the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-tawi as well as the cities of Marawi and Isabela.

But the BIFF, which pledged allegiance to the Daesh extremists in the Middle East, opposed BARRM and vowed to continue fighting for the establishment of an independent state in Mindanao.