COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Authorities enforced tight security around two Maguindanao towns following Monday’s separate bombings that killed a member of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM) and wounded eight other bandits.
Local officials identified the slain BIFM bandit as Kagui Haron, who died from shrapnel wounds.
Guerrillas of the BIFM suspect that rival Moro factions were responsible for the bombings, which they believe were aimed at neutralizing three of their senior leaders.
Four bandits, one of them identified as Commander Karialan, were injured in the first explosion.
Karialan and his companions were on their way to a gathering somewhere in Lower Salbu in Datu Saudi town when an improvised explosive device planted along a trail went off.
Abu Misry Mama, BIFM spokesman, told station Radio Mindanao Network’s dxMY that they were forced to call off their “Islamic dialogue” after the incident.
Police and Army probers could not easily get through to the scene without prior coordination with the joint ceasefire committee of the government and the MILF.
“There were three BIFM officials in that group, one of them was our chief-of-staff while the other was our political officer,” Mama told dxMY via mobile phone.
Mama said the victims, accompanied by their armed followers, were on their way to an “Islamic dialogue” in a secluded village in Lower Salbu in Datu Saudi town, passing through a farm trail, when the improvised explosive device planted along the route went off.
Barangay officials, however, doubted the assertion of Mama, hinting BIFM bandits could be transporting IEDs from their hideout to somewhere near Barangay Salbu proper, which is traversed by the Cotabato-General Santos City highway.
Also located at the center of Salbu is the headquarters of an Army mechanized brigade, which the BIFM attacked last August, during the group’s bloody forays in five towns in the second district of Maguindanao.
Investigators said there is also a possibility that local armed groups hostile to the BIFM could have carried out the bombing.
Certain commanders of the BIFM are locked in bloody clan wars (rido) with armed Moro factions in Maguindanao’s adjoining Datu Saudi, Salibo and Datu Piang towns.
There have been more than a dozen bloody encounters between BIFM forces and heavily armed Moro groups in the three towns.
Villagers were apprehensive that the BIFM would retaliate against rival groups in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police, Chief Superintendent Mario Avenido, said he has ordered the Maguindanao provincial police to guard villages in Datu Saudi town that are vulnerable to BIFM harassment.
Less than 20 minutes after the first explosion, another bomb went off in a cornfield at the border of Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay towns, killing Haron and wounding four BIFM bandits.
One of those injured in the second roadside bombing was Mohammad Tambako, BIFM chief political officer.
Tambako and his men were also slated to attend the Islamic dialogue among BIFM members, according to barangay officials.
Mama said they are still validating the circumstances surrounding the twin IED attacks.
Local officials said some BIFM groups are now gearing up for retaliation, convinced that the MILF or government-backed village militias could be responsible for the bombing.
MNLF snubs MILF, government
Meanwhile, the Sulu provincial government organized a forum on the Bangsamoro framework agreement, but MILF and government negotiators were not invited.
A statement posted on the MILF website luwaran.com said that the forum would be held on Dec. 4 at the capitol multi-purpose gymnasium in Patikul, Sulu.
The MILF said invitations were sent to ARMM officials led by Gov. Mujiv Hataman, members of the regional legislative assembly, lawmakers from the ARMM provinces and representatives from academe and other sectors but members of the government and members of the MILF Central Committee, “who undeniably are the right sources of true and accurate information, were not invited.”
According to the MILF, Sulu is known to be a “core territory” of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which reportedly had reservations on the Bangsamoro framework agreement.
“Indeed until today some MNLF ground commanders and fighters (are) still hoping to have their own government despite the uncertainty. Most of the time, the MNLF holds several meetings on the ground because they don’t recognized (sic) nor accept the new agreement between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” the MILF statement said. – Alexis Romero, Jaime Laude