The fruitless raids drew much criticism from various sectors for marring the solemn 14th day of Ramadan in this city.
The raiders, some of them from the Army 6th Infantry Division’s anti-crime Task Group Cotabato, first stormed and searched at dawn a house owned by preacher Kagui Ismael Mohammad in the residential district of Don Sero.
Mohammad’s relatives said some of the policemen and soldiers who entered their yard were wearing bonnets, triggering initial suspicions that the lawmen were criminals.
"When I asked them if they have a search warrant, one of them showed me a machine copy of their warrant," 46-year-old Akmad Ali, one of the occupants of Mohammad’s apartment-type residence, said.
Ali said the photocopy looked "so questionable, because the signature of the judge that issued it appeared to be altered."
The raiders also refused to show Ali a copy of the original warrant, he said. "What they showed me was only a machine copy, which, I believe, was very questionable."
Mohammad’s wife said the raiding team searched their house and took a notebook owned by a 16-year-old relative enrolled in a radio and television technician’s course at a local vocational school.
"Some of the agents were insisting the notebooks contained some electronic diagrams of bomb blasting mechanisms," a neighbor of the Mohammads said. "I also heard them asking for the whereabouts of Indonesians they claimed were residing in the vicinity."
These agents, military sources said, found an old copy of Maradika, the official newsletter of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in one of the rooms of the Mohammed residence.
Maradika is so widely circulated in Cotabato City that even Catholic religious communities receive copies of it regularly.
Rudolfo Magalang, chairman of Barangay Rosary Heights who has jurisdiction over the Don Sero district, said the raiders were searching for "chemicals," but did not elaborate.
"What is sad is that our authorities now appear to be so unsure of their moves in their campaign against terrorists," Magalang said.
Mohammad’s house is located three blocks away from a suspected JI safehouse raided by soldiers and policemen two weeks ago.
Hours after the operation in the Don Sero area, the raiding teams barged into the house of a certain Jordan Abdullah in Campo Muslim here and searched for suspected Indonesian JI members.
Barangay officials of Campo Muslim said the raiders entered Abdullah’s house forcibly and virtually trashed the place in their search for explosives and firearms.
"But, as far as we know, the raiders found nothing there except, perhaps, for some reading materials on Islam," said a barangay leader, who asked not to be named.