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Marwan-trained bomb maker killed in Maguindanao

John Unson - Philstar.com

May 22, 2017 | 9:05am

Marwan-trained bomb maker killed in Maguindanao

This Nov. 18, 2014 file photo shows an improvised explosive device recovered in Kabacan, Cotabato province. Philstar.com/File photo

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Authorities shot dead before dawn Monday a senior leader of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters trained to make bombs by notorious Malaysian terrorist Marwan.

Police and Army personnel were to peacefully serve Murad Ali two separate warrants for his arrest but were forced to neutralize him when he opened fire as they approached his hideout in Barangay Capiton in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

He was known as Abu Mohammad in the BIFF, an outlawed fanatical group operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The operation that resulted in Ali's death was jointly carried out by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police and the Maguindanao provincial police office.

Chief Inspector Achmad Alibonga of the Datu Odin Sinsuat police and officials of the CIDG-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao told The STAR they learned of Ali's presence in Barangay Capiton from vigilant barrio residents.

The plan to arrest Ali was immediately executed after intelligence agents of the provincial police, the Army’s 12th Intelligence Service Unit and the 603rd Infantry Brigade confirmed that the man that villagers saw tinkering with materials for an IED in a house in Barangay Capiton was Ali.

“He was to be arrested peacefully but he provoked an encounter that caused his death,” said Senior Supt. Agustin Tello, Maguindanao’s police director.

Tello said soldiers from the Army’s 19th Infantry Battalion and the 5th Special Forces Battalion provided manpower support to the operation.

Marwan's apprentice

Ali, a self-styled administrative and intelligence officer of the most radical of two factions in the BIFF, the one led by Imam Karialan, was trained in assembling improvised explosive devices in 2012 by Marwan and his cohort Abdulbasit Usman in a makeshift training facility at the border of Maguindanao’s Datu Piang and Mamasapano towns.

The Malaysian national Marwan, whose real name is Zulkifli bin Hir, was killed by a team of the police’s elite Special Action Force in a dawn raid in Barangay Pidsandawan in Mamasapano in January 2015.

Usman was shot dead about three months later by guerrillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in keeping with a provision in its ceasefire accord with the government enjoining both sides to cooperate in addressing peace and security issues in conflict-flashpoint areas.

Tello said there was an indication that Ali plotted to assemble an IED to be detonated somewhere.

The BIFF is known for its propensity in bombing civilian targets and public conveyances to avenge losses in encounters with the military. The group has lost more than 30 members in encounters in Maguindanao with units of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in the past 12 weeks.

Abu Amir, spokesman of the Karialan-led BIFF faction, said on Saturday that Ali was killed in Barangay Capiton by policemen and soldiers.

“It was Murad Ali, our brother in the BIFF,” he told reporters via mobile phone.

The raiding team found in his hideout a live mortar projectile, an Ingram 9-mm machine pistol and materials for IEDs.