Army lauds central Mindanao residents for vigilance vs IEDs

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Vigilance by residents of central Mindanao have helped prevent bombings in the region, the Army said.

Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division said it was fortunate that residents were able to alert authorities in time to dispose of improvised explosive devices that militants had planted along highways in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat and in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.

Personnel of the 602nd Brigade foiled just a week ago an attempt by men on motorcycles to smuggle five 81-mm projectiles that could have been used for IEDs to the town proper of Carmen, North Cotabato.

“The 602nd Brigade learned of that plan to transport the explosives to somewhere in the province from confidential informants in the barangays in Carmen. We can’t thank them enough,” Sobejana said.

The two men carrying the mortar projectiles abandoned the cache along a farm-to-market road in Barangay Kibayao, Carmen and turned back when they noticed a roadblock manned by soldiers ahead.

“Our men managed to immediately set up the checkpoint there when they learned from residents that explosives are to be brought out from somewhere via that route,” Sobejana said.

Army bomb disposal teams also deactivated early this week an IED fashioned from a 105-mm artillery round rigged with a blasting mechanism. Passersby had noticed the improvised bomb protruding out of the grassy side of the highway in Barangay Saniag in Ampatuan town in the second district of Maguindanao.

“I was one of those stranded when soldiers closed that stretch of the highway while a team was deactivating that IED. It was not me who was the target of that supposed bombing because it was merely by chance that I was to pass by. That was just a sudden, unannounced trip,” he said.

Sobejana said the 6th ID is thankful to the passersby who saw the IED and immediately reported its presence along the highway in Barangay Saniag.

Officials of local government units in Maguindanao and North Cotabato have blamed the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters for the bombing attempts.

The BIFF, which uses the black Islamic State flag, is feared for its practice of venting ire on non-military targets to get even for losses in encounters with pursuing units of the 6th ID.

More than 30 BIFF militants were reportedly killed in encounters with soldiers in central Mindanao from between January to April this year.

The group is not covered by the 1997 interim ceasefire between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front nor the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which the BIFF opposes.

Local officials also implicated the BIFF in the attempt to detonate a powerful IED near the entrance to a public school in Tacurong City two weeks ago.

The IED found near the entrance to the Griño Elementary School in Tacurong City was fashioned from a 105-mm Howitzer cannon shell, rigged with a detonator that can be set off from a distance using a mobile phone.

The IED was immediately defused by bomb disposal experts, responding to tips from informants who saw suspicious electrical wires.

Residents of Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat province are no strangers to bomb explosions, having witnessed bloody IED attacks by the outlawed BIFF in recent months.