BIFF bandits temporarily block Maguindanao highway

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – Bandits on Saturday blocked a strategic stretch of a national highway in Guindulungan town to avenge the arrest of five Islamic militants in a remote village in Maguindanao province.

 

Members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) used heavy trucks they flagged down to close the Bagan-Tambunan stretch of the Cotabato-Isulan Highway in Guindulungan in the second district of Maguindanao for five hours.

 

The attack came less than 24 hours after the arrest in Barira, Maguindanao of five members of the Maute terror group -- the erstwhile policeman Jessy Original, Ibrahim Arumpac, Hamza Bagul, Musa Rasamallah and Mohammad Said Biniday -- while scouting for a place to hide six vehicles they were to rig with explosives.

 

The highway blockade stranded hundreds of vehicles that authorities prevented from using the road.

 

Soldiers and policemen managed to clear the blockade when the bandits left after a standoff that was defused when local officials and community elders intervened.

 

The BIFF, through Abu Misry Mama, claimed responsibility for the closure of the highway.

 

“Our men were responsible for blocking that portion of a highway there,” Mama, who is BIFF spokesman, told reporters in Filipino via mobile phone.

 

Members of the municipal peace and order councils in different towns in the second district of Maguindanao said on Saturday that the BIFF was angered by the arrest on Thursday of the five Maute terror group members.

 

One of the five arrested terrorists, Original, was a member of the Philippine National Police for nine years before he joined the Maute group, now sowing havoc in Lanao del Sur.

 

Though subtly distinct in religious ideals, the BIFF and the Maute group, also known as the Dawlah Islamiya, both boast of allegiance to the Independent State of Iraq and Syria and are using the black ISIS flag as their banner.

 

 

Original, who was assigned in Antipolo, Rizal while still a police officer, told reporters he was a Catholic who embraced Islam last year before joining radical jihadists led by siblings Omar and Abdullah Maute in Butig, Lanao del Sur.

 

He and his four companions are now detained at the regional office in Cotabato City of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

 

Original also admitted to reporters his involvement in the September 2 bombing in Davao City that left 15 dead and injured more than 60 others.

 

“I was one of the lookouts when we perpetrated the bombing,” he said.

 

Original said he is more known in the Maute group as Abu Aisa.

 

Seven suspects in the deadly Davao City bombing, among them their leader, TJ Macabalang, an ethnic Maguindanaon, were arrested in one operation after another in Cotabato City after the incident.

 

The arrested bombers have links with five BIFF members, Salahudin Hassan, Abdulmalik Esmael, Bashir Ungab, Nasser Adil and Ansari Yunos, who were trained to make bombs by the slain Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan.

 

 

The five Maute members were intercepted by Criminal Investigation and Detection Group agents, the Barira municipal police and the Army’s 37th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Nabalawag on Thursday.

 

Investigators said the five militants planned to hide the six vehicles in Barira. They planned to fill the vehicles with explosives and detonate them in selected areas in Mindanao.

 

Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello, director of the Maguindanao provincial police, said they learned of the plan to bring in the vehicles to the province from vigilant local officials and moderate Islamic religious leaders.

 

“We are thankful to these informants,” Tello said.

 

Superintendent Jimmy Daza, CIDG’s regional chief for ARMM, said besides the six vehicles, the team that intercepted the five suspects also recovered from them four fragmentation grenades and materials for the fabrication of IEDs.

 

Daza said they are now verifying the ownership of the six vehicles, a white Toyota Tamaraw FX (ULB-358), a gray Mitsubishi Adventure (DSL-162), a white Mitsubishi Montero (AEX-783), a white Toyota Fortuner (TDQ-440), a silver Toyota Fortuner (TQK-892) and a Toyota Hi-Ace van without license plates.