Kato men raid another military detachment

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  â€“ As if taunting government troops, members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) raided an Army detachment in Midsayap, North Cotabato last Wednesday night, their third attack in Central Mindanao in three days.

No one was reported killed or wounded when the BIFF men tried to take over a roadside detachment of the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Ulandang, Midsayap town.

Police said the BIFF men surrounded the detachment and opened fire with assault rifles and shoulder-fired 40-mm grenade projectiles.

Although outnumbered, the soldiers manning the detachment returned fire, preventing the BIFF men from closing in.

Villagers said three BIFF members were either wounded or killed in the firefight, as their companions were carrying them as they withdrew.

BIFF spokesman Abu Misry Mama said the attacks on military positions in Central Mindanao were in retaliation for the fate of one of their members who was held at an Army checkpoint and later found dead by his relatives.

The Army’s 6th Infantry Division, which has jurisdiction over Maguindanao and North Cotabato, denied any knowledge of the incident. The Maguindanao police also had no record of such an incident.

Earlier, BIFF men attempted to take over two roadside outposts of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Brigade at the border of Salibo and Datu Piang towns in Maguindanao. A farmer was wounded in one of the attacks.

The BIFF is a breakaway Moro rebel group led by Ameril Ombra Kato, a former senior commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front who was booted out for serious infractions of the MILF’s revolutionary rules.