BIFF members kill chieftain in Maguindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters shot dead Tuesday morning an ethnic Teduray chieftain in Datu Saudi town in Maguindanao.

Diego Met Dagadas was killed just three days after the BIFF lost 13 members in a series of gunfights with soldiers in Maguindanao’s adjoining Datu Unsay and Datu Saudi towns.

Dagadas died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds.

Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello of the Maguindanao provincial police on Tuesday said personnel of the Datu Saudi municipal police are now investigating on the incident.

“Corresponding criminal cases will be filed against the culprits once identified,” Tello said.

Relatives told The STAR in Teduray dialect that BIFF gunmen surrounded the house of Dagadas at Mt. Firis proper in Datu Saudi, ordered him to come out and shot him with assault rifles at close range as he emerged.

Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division said the reported murder of Dagadas was an apparent BIFF retaliation for losses in skirmishes with soldiers in Datu Unsay three days before.

Dela Vega said they have tightened security in populated areas vulnerable to retaliatory attacks by BIFF gunmen.

The BIFF has enclaves in the neighboring Datu Unsay and Datu Saudi towns, both in the second district of Maguindanao.

Abu Misry Mama, spokesman of one of three factions in the BIFF, earlier confirmed losing companions in the hostilities in Datu Unsay on December 25.

He declined to reveal the number of their fatalities but local officials in Maguindanao province said the BIFF lost 13 members in the ensuing encounters, eight of them adolescents named Suhair, Mindo, Oting, Mustapha, Minoh, Saban, Mohaimen and Guinaid.

The December 25 hostilities in Barangays Maitemaig and Iganagampong in Datu Unsay erupted when BIFF gunmen attacked an Army detachment and burned houses of local ethnic Teduray settlers as they fled.

Key members of the municipal peace and order councils in Shariff Aguak, Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay towns on Tuesday said five of the 13 BIFF fatalities were killed when rockets fired by responding Augusta AW109 attack helicopters hit them.

“Our security effort intended to prevent retaliations by the BIFF is supported by the local government units in Maguindanao,” Dela Vega said.

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu on Tuesday said he has requested the provincial police to help guard from possible BIFF roadside bombings secluded stretches of roads crisscrossing the province.

The BIFF is known for targeting non-military targets to avenge losses in encounters with state security forces.

More than a dozen militants in the 3rd faction of the BIFF, the one led by radical cleric Esmael Abdulmalik, also known as Abu Toraife, in gunfights early this month with pursuing personnel of the Army’s 7th and 34th Infantry Battalions in Carmen, North Cotabato.