2 dead, 6 wounded includes BIFF spokesperson in Maguindanao clash

Members of Joint Peace and Security Team (JPST) from Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Police and Military security forces secured JPST station, a government facility in Barangay Kitango, Datu Saudi town in Maguindanao. Local terrorist group BIFF has been opposing the setting up a government facility post in the area. Last month, 14 suspected BIFF militants died in days of clashes just to discontinue building this security post after more than 50 militants occupied a village in the remote town of Datu Saudi Ampatuan. (Mark Navales)

 

Datu Saudi Ampatuan Maguindanao – Two civilians were killed and Abu Jihad, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) spokesperson was among the six wounded in the recent clash between government troops and pro-Islamic State militants last Wednesday.

Casualties were identified as Bahria Alon, 40; and Lagabai Mohalidin, 24; while four soldiers and another civilian aside from Jihad were injured in the explosion according to regional military spokesman Lt. Col. John Paul Baldomar.

Army Col. Pete Balisi, commander of 1st Mechanized Brigade said that Jihad lost his left leg following the blast shortly before 10:00 a.m. in Kitango, a remote village in the mumicipality.

“Based on the accounts of our witnesses, he lost his leg,” Balisi said.

“The civilians were hit by shrapnel, not by bullets,” he added.

 Local terrorist group BIFF has been opposing the setting up a government facility post (JPST station), joint peacekeeping force by MILF and government security forces in the area.

Last month, 14 suspected BIFF militants died in days of clashes in the restive southern province of Maguindanao after more than 50 militants occupied in the said village.

"The clashes started with a bomb explosion in the village of Kitango around 9:00 a.m. that followed by mortar shelling by the military," Rohanna Salik, Datu Saudi Ampatuan local disaster response officer stated.

“The military was conducting clearing operations. There was an improvised explosive device that exploded then it followed by an exchange of gunfire,” she added.

“Local know that there are no people living in that area, why did they go there?” Datu Saudi Ampatuan Mayor Edris A. Sindatok said.

"We immediately brought one wounded civilian to provincial hospital in Maguindanao by ambulance and we gave financial assistance to the two women killed in the incident," he added.

About 540 families displaced by fresh fighting between soldiers and BIFF are seen at the evacuation center in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao. Local terrorist group BIFF has been opposing the setting up a government facility post in the area. Last month, 14 suspected BIFF militants died in days of clashes just to discontinue building this security post after more than 50 militants occupied a village in the remote town of Datu Saudi Ampatuan.(Mark Navales)

The recent encounters forced 540 families to evacuate to safer grounds in the middle of the celebration of Ramadan.

BIFF is a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country’s largest rebel group when it signed a peace deal with Manila three years ago.

MILF then dropped its separatist bid for an independent state in the south, an idea that did not sit well with BIFF.

In 2019, BIFF was blamed for a series of bomb attacks, including on a town market and at a restaurant in the town of Isulan that injured dozens of civilian respectively. (Mark Navales/The Redline News)