5 gunmen slain, head of crime group captured in Sultan Kudarat

GENERAL SANTOS CITY –– Security forces killed five members of a lawless group in a clash on Thursday in a remote village of Labayong town, Sultan Kudarat, the military reported Friday.

Army Col. Joel Mamon, commander of the 601st Infantry Brigade, said nine other armed men were wounded, while 15, including the armed group’s leader, had been captured during the fighting in the town’s Baumol village.

According to Mamon, troops belonging to the 40th Infantry Battalion were conducting a law enforcement mission against commander Tugali Guiamal Galmak when they ran into the armed men.

Tugali, who is among those captured, is the commander of an armed lawless group and a former member of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom group operating in Central Mindanao, said Mamon.

“When our troops reached the area at 6:29 in the morning, our target was reinforced with more or less 20 fully armed men,” said regional military commander Maj. Gen. Diosdado Carreon, who also heads the Joint Task Force Central.

Regional military spokesman Major Arvin Encinas of Armed Forces of the Philippines-Western Mindanao Command told the Inquirer by phone that the suspects had been involved in abduction and crimes across the region.

Photographs released by the military showed the remains of the slain gunmen and arrested personalities guarded by troops after the encounter.

Encinas said they were checking if Tugali’s group had been working with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, a group that splintered from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which signed a peace deal with the government.

The fighting occurred days after President Duterte certified as urgent House Bill No. 6875, which contains provisions that would allow warrantless arrests of terror suspects and imprisonment for at least 14 days.

LZB