BIFF bandits’ lairs yield guns, bombs, stolen motorbikes

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – Government troops pursuing Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) bandits behind Tuesday’s dawn attack in Mamasapano town recovered firearms, improvised explosives and stolen motorcycles in the hideouts they had abandoned in haste.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said military units in Mamasapano and surrounding towns are now bracing for possible retaliation by the BIFF for its losses in a series of encounters since Monday.

BIFF bandits attacked patrolling government troops in Mamasapano on Tuesday, and villagers said four of them were slain in clashes with Army soldiers, although only two bodies have been recovered.

Hermoso said the bandits’ lairs yielded three M-16 assault rifles, a shoulder-fire rocket launcher, a dozen roadside bombs, and seven stolen motorcycles.

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

“What I can confirm is that our soldiers had recovered two cadavers of the enemies. Talk is rife among villagers that there are two other slain BIFF bandits (whose bodies were) taken away by their escaping companions, but that is something we still have to validate. The information relayed to us by local officials and barangay leaders, seemed true,” Hermoso said.

Hermoso said troops 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, also recovered a laptop containing files on the BIFF’s extortion and bomb fabrication activities.

Soldiers also arrested four women while roaming around the bandits’ enclaves in the middle of rice fields at the boundary of Mamasapano and Shariff Saidona towns.

The four, believed to be wives of bandits, were found carrying explosives and assorted ammunition. They were turned over to the police, Hermoso said.