Government troops recover two Armalite rifles, an M-14 rifle, a .45 pistol, and a 9-mm machine pistol during the raid on a safehouse. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
COTABATO CITY—Police intercepted three men, including a former village chair, suspected to be members of the Dawlah Islamiya, a group with links to the terror network Islamic State, in Marantao, Lanao del Sur.
Colonel Jibin Bongcayao, Lanao del Sur police director, said provincial police, backed by 55th Infantry Battalion troops, raided a safe house in Barangay Rana-Ranao and recovered two Armalite rifles, an M-14 rifle, a .45 pistol, and a 9-mm machine pistol.
Bongcayao said Judge Alberto Quinto of the Regional Trial Court Branch 21 in Lanao del Norte issued a search warrant against former village chair Mastura Disomala.
The suspects were detained and awaiting formal charges for violating the law on illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Police, however, are still verifying reports that the suspects were among the remnants of the Maute terrorist organization responsible for the Marawi siege that plunged the Islamic city into a five-month fighting between government troops and the Islamic State-inspired terror group in 2017.
Bongcayao has also ordered the Marantao police and provincial mobile force companies to be alert for retaliatory attacks from followers of the arrested suspects.
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