Usman hopping from one area to another in Maguindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – Filipino terrorist Abdul Basit Usman, wounded in the bloody Jan. 25 encounter in Mamasapano, is moving from one swampy area to another in the province to avoid detection, sources revealed yesterday.

Some villagers, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said a moneyed suspect in the infamous 2009 Maguindanao massacre has been providing Usman with food and medicine for the wounds he sustained during the encounter with Special Action Force (SAF) policemen in Barangay Inog-og in Mamasapano.

Usman, an ethnic Maguindanaon, was said to have undergone training in handling of explosives and fabrication of improvised bombs in Kandahar, Afghanistan and in Peshawar, Pakistan in the 1990s.

Muslim community leaders said Usman, known in Mamasapano as “Teng,” was indeed wounded in an encounter with SAF operatives that killed Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan.

Marwan’s hideout in Barangay Inog-og is located some 50 meters away from Usman’s shanty.

“He is treating his wounds with antibiotics supplied by a benefactor, someone who was implicated in the Maguindanao massacre,” one of the sources said.

Usman was known in Mamasapano as a close aide of Marwan. Together they trained more than 300 recruits in the past three years.

“Before Jan. 25, he (Usman) was always at the market at Shariff Aguak to buy food supplies for Marwan as if he is not a wanted person,” one villager revealed.

The public market of Sharif Aguak, the old provincial capital of Maguindanao, is near the provincial police office and the headquarters of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Brigade.

A barangay official said Marwan was buried in Dasikil, an agricultural area in Mamasapano near Rajah Buayan town.

“He was buried there a day after he was killed by policemen,” said the source.

Local officials in Rajah Buayan said residents of Dasikil had confirmed Marwan was indeed buried in an unmarked grave in the area.