Probers still clueless on burning of Marwan's hut in Maguindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - The burning of the hut on Tuesday night allegedly occupied by Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan in a secluded area in Mamasapano, Maguindanao remained a mystery for police investigators as of Thursday.

Inspector Reggie Abellera, chief of the Mamasapano police, said community elders and elected village leaders in the adjoining Tukanalipao, Pimbalakan, Pidsadawan and Inog-og areas are still trying to establish the identities of the people who torched the shanties of Marwan and his ethnic Maguindanaon cohort, bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman.

“We need enough time to determine who were responsible for the burning of those houses,” Abellera said.

He said policemen could not get through the spot where Marwan’s house once stood due to the presence of armed men in the area.

Even local officials have no leads yet on why Marwan’s house, made only of indigenous materials, was burned hours after members of the government’s Board of Inquiry came for an ocular inspection of the sites of the deadly January 25 firefights between policemen and Moro rebels.

Abellera said barangay officials they requested to investigate on the arson attack had returned with pictures of the fire scene.

“The houses were totally razed down. We can see from the photos ashes on the ground and few pieces of burnt wood,” he said.

Investigators are validating circulating stories that the hut was torched to discourage supposed plans of the military to inspect and put up a detachment in the area.

“Tension is very high in the area,” said an employee of the local government unit of Mamasapano.

Another local government worker said Barangay Dasikil in west of Mamasapano immediately became a “ghost barangay” last Wednesday after folks learned from radio reports that the Armed Forces will launch an offensive against the brigand Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

There are BIFF members, led by Ustadz Tambako, in Dasikil, where Marwan was reportedly buried a day after he was killed by Special Action Force commandos that raided his hideout in Inog-og last January 25.

The BIFF, led by radical clerics, is not covered by the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.