BIFF bandits driven away from N. Cotabato village

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines  – Army combatants yesterday drove away bandits of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) from a farming community where they tried to make a display of force two days earlier along a stretch of the highway at the border of North Cotabato’s Mlang and Matalam towns.

Capt. Tony Bulao, spokesman of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade, said BIFF members who had holed up in Sitio Pedtad, Barangay Gaunan in Mlang town have fled deep into the Liguasan Delta, bringing with them their companions wounded in firefights with soldiers last Tuesday.

Bulao said they would turn over control of Sitio Pedtad to the Mlang municipal government as soon as possible to enable local officials to help families displaced by the hostilities to return home.

Soldiers pounded with 81-mm mortar projectiles and 105 Howitzer cannon shells the surroundings of Sitio Pedtad to drive the BIFF bandits away.