4 dead in Cotabato shooting rampage

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Four more were killed here Friday in a daytime shooting rampage involving attackers armed with an AK-47 Kalashnikov, an M16-rifle and handguns.

More than 400 people have been killed here in one attack after another in the past six years by suspected guns-for-hire and protagonists in clan wars involving Moro families.

The fatalities in Friday’s carnage, barangay councilor Misuari Kasim and his companions, community watchmen Mamanta Kalim, Theng Wahab and Omar Abo, were seated in a village patrol vehicle parked on a bridge when the gunmen approached and opened fire.

Kasim, a member of the barangay council in Mother Bagua District here, and companions Kalim and Wahab died on the spot while Abo succumbed several hours later in a hospital.

The suspects managed to escape with getaway motorcycles and a four-wheeled vehicle even before responding policemen from a nearby police precinct, less than a kilometer away, arrived at the scene.

Senior Superintendent Rex Anongos, director of the Cotabato City police, said there is an indication that Kasim was the target of the attack.

Kasim had earlier reported to the office here of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group his having received death threats via text messages from anonymous senders.

Anongos announced Saturday morning over a popular broadcast outfit here, Catholic station dxMS, that they now have a hint on who the gunmen were and assured corresponding criminal cases will be filed against them.

“It appears that it was the slain barangay councilor who was the target of the suspects,” Anongos told station dxMS via mobile phone.

There are stories spreading around purporting that the attack was precipitated by an earlier shooting incident somewhere in the same barangay, where relatives of the fatality point to certain barangay tanods under Kasim as the culprits.