Authorities urged to hunt down Maute's henchman in Lanao del Sur

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Officials have urged authorities to hunt for a militant named Abu Dar who had reportedly relocated from Marawi City to the Unayan area in Lanao del Sur.

“We have been receiving persistent feedback from vigilant Maranaos in Lanao del Sur that he has some 40 followers in tow,” Regional Vice Gov. Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said on Monday.

Lucman hinted about Abu Dar’s group at the sideline of the state of the region address on Monday of Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman at the Shariff Kabunsuan Complex in the 32-hectare ARMM compound in Cotabato City.

He said many of Abu Dar’s followers are young militants, some of them not even adolescents yet.

Abu Dar is known in Lanao del Sur and Marawi City as henchman of the slain Omar Maute, founding leader of the Islamic State-inspired Maute terror group.

“Authorities must also check on reports saying that the group of Abu Dar is a well-funded terror group. As to who, or what organization bankrolls their activity is a mystery,” said Lucman, who hails from Bayang town in the second district of Lanao del Sur.

Key Army and police intelligence sources said on Tuesday that Abu Dar, a key figure in the inner circle of the Maute terror group’s leadership core, was involved in the five-month siege of Marawi City.

The sources clarified, however, that the group’s leadership crumbled with the death of its Maranaw figurehead who was killed in Marawi City last October by pursuing Scout Rangers and personnel of an Army mechanized unit.

Also killed along with Maute, a Maranao from Butig town in Lanao del Sur, was Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon, who was born and raised in Basilan.

“The police and military must not stop from destroying all remnants of the Maute and Abu Sayyaf terror groups that created trouble in Marawi City and left the city in ruins while different agencies are focused on rebuilding and reorganizing the communities there,” Lucman said.

Sources from the Police Regional Office-ARMM said Abu Dar could be the same militant who led a group that attempted to intrude into a secluded barangay in Bayang town in September, but balked when armed barangay residents and elders resisted.

Marawi City Mayor Majul Gandamra, who attended Hataman’s SORA on Monday, also said that state security forces must continue hunting for Maute and Abu Sayyaf stragglers in all four corners of Lanao del Sur.

Gandamra said he was elated with Hataman’s commitment to raise at least P250 million, with permission from state auditors and the Department of Budget and Management, from the coffers of the region’s different line agencies as initial seed money for the rehabilitation of the conflict-torn Marawi City.

Hataman also assured in his SORA to allocate P930 million from savings and regular funds of the regional government as additional contribution for the rebuilding of the devastated Maranao enclaves in the city.

Gandamra said relief agencies, the police, the military and personnel of the Marawi City local government unit have facilitated the return of evacuees to nine barangays in recent weeks.

Marawi City has more than 90 barangays, about half of them badly affected by the conflict.

“We are now working on the return of evacuees to eight more cleared barangays,” Gandamra said.

Like Lucman, Gandamra also urged the ARMM police and the military to keep Marawi City tightly guarded at all times.

“We must not take chances. We must not let the terrorists regroup and terrorize Maranaos again,” Gandamra said.

Gandamra said personnel of the Marawi City police, now led by an Islamic theologian, Superintendent Ebra Moxsir, are busy locating members of the Maute terror group who are still at large to prevent them from regrouping.