3 stolen motorcycles used by terrorists recovered in Cotabato town

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The police and military together impounded in a joint operation on Friday three stolen motorcycles that local terrorists had reportedly used in transporting home-made bombs from one area to another and in distributing shabu to contacts in different towns in Cotabato province.

The two Suzuki Raider 150 and Honda CRF were found in a secluded area in Barangay Kabasalan in Pikit by combined personnel of the Pikit Municipal Police Station and troops from the Army’s 90th Infantry Battalion with the help of villagers supporting the Army’s anti-terror campaign in the municipality.

Barangay Kabasalan in Pikit town in Cotabato is not too distant from the 220,000-hectare Ligawasan Marsh, where there is presence of the allied Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and from where both groups launch their bomb attacks and extortion activities in Central Mindanao.

The Pikit MPS and the 90th IB had recovered in recent months in different barangays in Pikit several motorcycles stolen from different towns in Cotabato province.

Pikit, located in the first district of Cotabato, is a known hotbed of violent religious extremism, being espoused by radical clerics fomenting animosity towards non-Muslims.