COTABATO CITY – An army captain was wounded in a clash with rebels in the troubled Muslim region in southern Philippines, officials said on Saturday.
Officials said the fighting erupted in the village called Tee in Maguindanao’s Datu Salibo town where troops, who were guarding government infrastructure projects, came under attack Friday afternoon from Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
Troops – from the 1st Mechanized Brigade – also rescued construction workers from the area and brought them to safety while fighting was raging on, according to Captain Jo-ann Petinglay, a spokeswoman for the 6th Infantry Division, who said rebel attack also damaged a backhoe.
“A still undetermined number of gunmen were killed and wounded in the clashes,” she told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Petinglay said more troops would be sent to the area to secure the projects from further rebel attacks. She said four of the rebel leaders responsible in the attack have been identified as Bungos, Abusaiden, Kagui Tatang and Ustadz Roman.
The BIFF, whose members were mostly former fighters of the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is fighting for a separate Islamic state in southern Philippines and has pledged allegiance with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and vowed to wage a violent campaign in the region.
There was no immediate statement from Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu on the latest attack, but the province is a known stronghold of the BIFF and other jihadist groups, including the MILF which is believed to be harboring Malaysian and Indonesian terrorists.
The province was also where MILF and BIFF forces killed 44 police commandos last year following a clandestine operation deep inside their territory that killed Malaysian bomber Marwan. The MILF signed a peace deal with Manila in 2014, but many of its hard-line commanders and soldiers were opposed to the accord and wanted a separate Muslim state in Mindanao. (Mindanao Examiner)
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