2 Army plainclothes agents killed in Lanao del Norte ambush

COTABATO CITY — Gunmen killed two Army intelligence agents in an ambush on Wednesday afternoon in a secluded area in Barangay Lininding in Munai, Lanao del Norte.

The Munai Municipal Police Station and the Lanao del Norte Provincial Police Office on Thursday separately confirmed to reporters the fatal ambush of the two members of the Army’s 51st Infantry Battalion, whose names were withheld pending notification of their families.

Their cadavers were immediately brought to a mortuary by personnel of the 51st IB led by 1Lt. John Mark Tayaban and a team from the Munai MPS.

The two non-uniformed soldiers were riding a motorcycle together, out on a mission, when they were shot with assault rifles by men positioned along a farm-to-market road in a secluded area in Barangay Lininding in Munai, killing them on the spot.

Their attackers took their wristwatches, wallets and service pistols before they scampered away, according to local officials.

Text messages are spreading around hinting that a group identified with the Dawlah Islamiya, which is operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, was behind the atrocity.

The Dawlah Islamiya was tagged in last month’s bombing of Catholics attending mass at the Dimaporo Gymnasium inside the campus of the state-owned Mindanao State University in Marawi City in Lanao del Sur, an attack that left four worshipers dead and hurt more than 40 others. Marawi City is not too distant from Munai, a predominantly Maranaw municipality.