3 dead in 2 Cotabato City ambushes within 7 hours

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Three motorists were killed while four others, including a minor, were wounded in two successive gun attacks, in a span of just seven hours, in Cotabato City on Saturday, July 11.

Two men riding a motorcycle together, Ibrahim Miya and Aldren Karisio Keda, died instantly in an ambush before dawn Saturday in Barangay Rosary Heights 11 in Cotabato City.

Officials of the Cotabato City Police Office and local executives told reporters at noon Saturday that Miya and Keda were on their way somewhere, along with three female companions, Johaira Mohammad, Leisith Tan and Clarizze Tubilan, also together then in a motorcycle trailing behind, when they were attacked by gunmen positioned along their route.

Miya and Keda both died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack. The incident left Mohammad, Tan and Tubilan wounded.

Witnesses had reported to barangay officials and investigators from the Cotabato City Police Precinct 2, who responded to the incident, that the gunmen behind the ambush that resulted in the death of Miya and Keda were armed with an M16 rifle and 9 millimeter pistols.

About seven hours later, another motorist, Surraff Kadir Pasandalan, a resident of Barangay Taviran in the nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte, was killed in a similar attack at the LR Sebastian area in Barangay Rosary Heights 10 in Cotabato City.

Pasandalan’s son was wounded in the attack, according to Lt. Rochelle Evangelista, spokesperson of the Cotabato City Police Office.

Evangelista said Pasandalan and his 16-year-old son were also riding a motorcycle when they were waylaid by gunmen at a stretch of a thoroughfare in the LR Sebastian area, not too distant from where Miya and Keda and their three companions were ambushed.

Pasandalan was declared dead on arrival by physicians at the nearby Cotabato Regional Medical Center where his adolescent son, who was wounded in the ambush, is now confined

Their attackers immediately escaped using a getaway motorcycle, according to community leaders in Barangay Rosary Heights 10.