3 dead, 6 hurt in Moro rebel attacks

COTABATO CITY—Moro breakaway rebels staged attacks in two towns in Maguindanao on Sunday night, killing three people and wounding six others, local officials said.

Mayor Genuine Kamaong of Datu Piang town said about 30 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), which split from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), surrounded Barangay (village) Magaslong, including the safehouse of the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion, and opened fire with rifles and shoulder-fired grenades.

Private First Class Roger Warde was killed while his companion, Corporal Edison Media, was wounded, officials said.

The military unit figured prominently in flushing out BIFF forces that occupied portions of the Cotabato-General Santos highway after assaulting seven Army and paramilitary detachments in Maguindanao last week.

Sunday’s attacks forced hundreds of families to evacuate to safe areas for fear of getting caught in the crossfire. The lone road network linking Datu Piang and Midsayap town in North Cotabato was closed.

Farmer Umbak Sapan, 40, was wounded when the soldiers belonging to the 45th Infantry Battalion engaged the rebels, Kamaong said. “We rushed Sapan to nearby Midsayap using the river tributaries because the highway was closed,” he said.

In Datu Paglas town, BIFF rebels raided a banana plantation owned by Alip River Development and Export Corp., in Barangay Alip.

Two security guards were killed and four others, including banana inspectors, were wounded in an ambush while they were checking the site, SPO4 Sumunsang Mangko, head of operation team of the municipal police, said.

On August 5, members of the BIFF, the armed wing of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM) which broke away from the MILF in 2010, simultaneously attacked eight military positions in Maguindanao, displacing more than 7,000 families.

Ameril Umra Kato, BIFM leader who once headed the MILF’s 105th Base Command, was tagged as being behind the attacks on civilian communities in North Cotabato in 2008, following the botched signing of a proposed Moro homeland deal between the government and the MILF.