An initial police reports from the field showed the anti-narcotics operation was conducted at Muslim Village in Barangay Ilang early Friday morning.
Six of those killed were identified as Dark Abdul Nawang, Ronel Morque, Jainal Solani, Musa Sailamay, Faizal Albani, and Wahib Sailili. One slain man remained unidentified, the report added.
“They put up a fight and were killed in the process,” Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said over a radio station here when asked about the deaths.
Duterte said the raid, conducted by agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Southern Mindanao, the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, and the Davao City Police Office, was part of a campaign against the proliferation of drugs in the city.
The raid came after Duterte offered rewards to those who provide information about drug dealers in the city.
Earlier, he said drugs coming into the city might have been sneaked in through smuggled rice shipments from neighboring Asian countries.
Duterte has long been suspected of being behind extrajudicial killings in Davao City, an accusation the Aquino administration ally has repeatedly denied. With a report from Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao
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