Army recovers firearms from bandits' lair

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines  --- Army combatants pursuing members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters  (BIFF) behind Tuesday’s dawn attack in Mamasapano town recovered more firearms, improvised explosives, and stolen vehicles in the bandits' camp abandoned in haste.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’ 6th Infantry Division, said military units in Mamasapano and surrounding towns are now bracing themselves for possible retaliation by the BIFF for its loses in a series of encounters with soldiers that started on Monday.

Hermoso said soldiers running after the bandits that attacked on Tuesday patrolling government combatants in Mamasapano found three M-16 assault rifles, a shoulder-fire rocket launcher, a dozen more roadside bombs, and seven stolen motorcycles hidden in the houses the gunmen had used as lairs.

Soldiers had previously recovered a Barret caliber .50 sniping rifle, a launching tube for 60 millimeter explosive projectile, and bomb-making materials along the bandits' escape route.

Hermoso said reports from barangay folks indicate that four BIFF bandits were killed in encounters with soldiers since Sunday night, but only two enemy cadavers had been recovered so far.

“What I can confirm is that our soldiers had recovered two cadavers of enemies. Talks are rife among villagers that there are two other dead BIFF bandits taken away by their escaping companions, but that is something we still have to validate. The information regarding that, relayed to us by local officials and barangay leaders, seemed true,” Hermoso told reporters Wednesday morning.

Hermoso said soldiers, led by Lt. Col. Donald Hongitan of the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion, and Col. Gener Del Rosario, commanding officer of the 1st Mechanized Brigade, had also recovered a laptop computer containing files pertaining to the BIFF’s extortion and clandestine bomb fabrication activities.

Four women, carrying explosives and assorted ammunition, believed to be wives of BIFF gunmen, were also captured by soldiers after surrounding guerilla enclaves in the middle of rice farms at the border of Maguindanao’s adjoining Mamasapano and Shariff Saidona towns.

Hermoso said the women have been turned over to the Maguindanao provincial police.

“They are now in the custody of the local government unit of Shariff Aguak, being monitored by government social welfare workers,” Hermoso pointed out. - John Unson