Muslim preacher killed, fellow cleric hurt in gun attack

COTABATO, Philippines — Another Muslim preacher in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was killed on Tuesday, September 29, in an attack that left his fellow missionary badly wounded.

Local executives and officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region separately told reporters on Wednesday that the Islamic theologian, Ustadz Ebrahim Madidis, died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack. 

The term "ustadz" means preacher in Arabic, one who can lead Friday prayer rites in mosques, or teach Islam in Islamic learning institutions.

His relative, Ustadz Salindab M. Madidis, who is also an Islamic missionary, was wounded in the incident, now confined to a hospital, in critical condition.

Police Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of PRO-BAR, and local executives separately told reporters on Wednesday that the two Muslim clerics were both standing along a stretch of a highway in Barangay Olandang in Nabalawag town in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area when two men riding a motorcycle together pulled over close to them and opened fire.

Their attackers motored away immediately, leaving them both sprawled on the ground.

The atrocity, pulled off in the presence of people around, was preceded by the deaths of four Islamic clerics in separate shooting incidents in two other towns in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area and in Datu Piang and Datu Odin Sinsuat towns in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces, respectively, in the past nine months.

The Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area covers eight towns that are under the BARMM government, but are inside the territory of Cotabato province in Region 12. Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte are among the five provinces in BARMM's territory.

Motorcycle-riding men also bombed with a fragmentation grenade last week the white minivan of Islamic missionary Hajim Halil, while parked at a roadside carwash shelter in Barangay Kitango in Datu Saudi Ampatuan in Maguindanao del Sur.

One side of Halil’s vehicle got perforated with shrapnels.  Police probers are still clueless on who the bombers were. They also immediately escaped using their motorcycle after setting off a fragmentation grenade close to the vehicle of Hallil..

A policeman, Patrolman Faisal Alang, a Quran reading expert involved in dawah, or community preaching activities, assigned to one of the towns in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, was found dead, with a bullet wound in the head, on Friday night along a stretch of a highway in Sitio Raberran in Barangay General Luna in Carmen, Cotabato.

Barangay General Luna is not too distant from the command base in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Unit of the unit where the slain Alang belonged, the 1405th Mobile Force Company of PRO-BAR’s Regional Mobile Force Battalion 14-A.

Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog. acting commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, told reporters on Wednesday that officials on their 602nd Infantry Brigade, which has units in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, are helping police probers identify the killers of Madidis and Alang.