SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines – One of the eight extremists soldiers killed in Palimbang town Thursday was a nephew of a retired member of the House of Representatives who dropped out from school to join the Ansarul Khilafa Philippines (AKP).
The mother of the slain jihadist, who was shot dead by combatants of the 1st Marine Brigade in an encounter in Barangay Butril in Palimbang, is a staff of a government entity in Region 12.
Relatives said their young kin, who had stopped pursuing a degree at a Catholic school to study Islamic theology in Gen. Santos City, had not communicated with his parents for about six months until he was killed on Thursday by Marines sent to neutralize their group.
“Of course his elders have nothing to do with his having turned into an extremist or to say it clearly a `wrongly-guided’ jihadist,” said a clan member, who is also employed in a government outfit.
The slain jihadist was a scion of the Moro royalty in the ilod (downstream) area of Maguindanao province.
The ragtag AKP group the Marines fought and eventually flushed out of Barangay Butril southeast of Palimbang is led by the radical, firebrand Jaafar Maguid, who has been introducing himself as local figurehead of the jihadist faction.
Maguid has been vocal about his being so inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) whenever he speaks to Muslim villagers in areas where he and his men operate.
Eight followers of Maguid were killed in the ensuing firefight Thursday, which resulted to the takeover by the Marines of their lair in Barangay Butril.
Marine combatants found in their camp assorted firearms and black flags identical with the flags the ISIS use.
Maguid and his men had tried to expand their group in far-flung areas in Palimbang, according to local officials.
Police and military sources said they stirred the ire of barangay folks and local officials when they began spreading doctrines espousing hostility with non-Muslims.
Palimbang, a coastal town in Sultan Kudarat, is an old settlement where Muslim and Christian residents have peacefully been thriving as neighbors even before the town was created in the 1950s.
Maguid is wanted for heinous offenses and tagged too as protector of local drug rings.
While in Barangay Butril, he and his men encouraged villagers to arm themselves in anticipation of possible persecution by non-Muslims.
Sources from the religious communities in Lanao del Sur province said the AKP is an ally of another armed extremist group, the Khilafa Islamiya Movement (KIM), which has also openly been expressing support to the ISIS.
The police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group is now validating reports that one of the eight followers of Maguid the Marines killed was Indonesian national Ibrahim “Fatah” Alih.
Alih was implicated in the deadly Oct. 12, 2002 bombing in Bali, Indonesia.
Alih was with Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, most known as Marwan, and his ethnic Moro coddler, foreign-trained bomber Abdul Basit Usman, before the elite Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police raided on Jan. 25, 2015 their lair in Pidsandawan District in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao.
Marwan was killed in the raid, but the SAF operation went haywire. It sparked a series of encounters with local guerrilla groups less than an hour later, resulting to the deaths of 44 policemen, 17 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and five innocent villagers.
The incident, now known as the “Mamasapano massacre,” shook the nation to its core and challenged the ongoing government-MILF peace overture.