Army deactivates BIFF roadside bombs in North Cotabato

NORTH Cotabato, Philippines - Army bomb experts promptly deactivated on Thursday powerful roadside bombs laid by members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters near an Army detachment that the bandits tried to take over on Wednesday.

Senior Inspector Henry Narciso, police chief of Midsayap town in the first district of the province, said the home-made explosives were fashioned from live anti-tank rockets rigged with trip wires.

The bombs were planted along a farm-to-market road connecting Barangay Ulandang in Midsayap to the town market where farmers sell their products.

Some 80 BIFF bandits attacked on Wednesday night a detachment of the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion not far from where the roadside bombs were planted.

Although outnumbered, soldiers manning the detachment managed to drive away the bandits with their assault rifles and 40mm shoulder-fire grenades.

Narciso said members of the same group could have returned hours after they escaped and, under cover of pitch darkness, laid the explosives on the road.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the 40th Infantry Battalion, which has jurisdiction over Midsayap and Aleosan town, also in North Cotabato, has tightly been monitoring all interior barangays vulnerable to BIFF attacks.

Midsayap and Aleosan are located along the 220,000 hectare Liguasan Marsh, a known haven of Moro extremist factions and criminal gangs.