COTABATO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 11, 2013) – Gunmen on Friday killed a young politician and wounded and her husband and driver in an ambush that occurred ahead of village polls in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Officials said the attack in Lanao del Sur’s Piagapo town killed the 28-year old Salma Abdurahman Sultan, a candidate in the October 28 elections. Her husband, Tagoloan Jakaria, 29, and their driver, Jainal Pacasum, were both wounded in the ambush, according to Captain Jefferson Somera, a regional army spokesman.
“The politician had just filed her candidacy paper in the town and was returning home when gunmen attacked her vehicle. The woman was instantly killed in the attack,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Somera said the ambushers escaped after the shooting. He said the military and police have launched a separate investigation into the ambush and he could not say who were suspected as behind the broad daylight attack or whether the ambush was connected to the upcoming polls.
The province is part of the Muslim autonomous region.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the ambush, but elections in the southern Philippines are traditionally violent and even village polls is a huge concern to authorities because of warring political clans, vote buying and the presence of private armies and rebel groups in the troubled region. (Mindanao Examiner)
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