More than a dozen IEDs found in North Cotabato

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines — Soldiers recovered Friday home-made explosives packed with bent nails and metal fragments with jagged edges in a hideout of the Dawlah Islamiya near the Liguasan Delta.

The improvised explosive devices were found in an abandoned house in Barangay Manaulanan in Pikit town in North Cotabato, where there is clandestine presence of Dawlah Islamiya forces.

Combined personnel of the Army’s 7th and 34th Infantry Battalions and the 62nd Division Reconnaissance Company of the 6th Infantry Division discovered the IED stockpile in Barangay Manaulanan in Pikit, North Cotabato while patrolling to check on the reported sightings there of gunmen clad in black clothes.

The Dawlah Islamiya, also known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, was tagged in all deadly bombings in central Mindanao in the past four years.

Barangay leaders and traditional Moro elders have confirmed that the IEDs were owned by Dawlah Islamiya gunmen who escaped when they learned that about a hundred soldiers backed by Simba armored assault vehicles were closing in.

Major Gen. Diosdado Carreon, commander of 6th ID, said Saturday the confiscated home-made bombs were immediately deactivated by Army bomb experts.

He said the 6th ID is thankful to vigilant Moro residents and local officials in Pikit for providing information on the presence of Dawlah Islamiya bomb-makers in Barangay Manaulanan.

The barangay is not too distant from the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta, a haven of local ISIS-inspired terrorists, among them Dawlah Islamiyah leaders Esmael Abdulmalik and Salahudin Hassan, both eloquent in fomenting hatred for non-Muslims.