Ex-barangay chairman, kin killed in Sulu ambush

COTABATO CITY—Armed men armed with assault rifles ambushed and killed a 27-year-old Tausug man and his relative, a former barangay chairman, in Indanan town, Sulu, on Saturday, December 21.

In separate reports on Sunday, December 22, officials of the Sulu Provincial Police Office and Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said that Fadjiri Abdirajan Biao and his 61-year-old elder, Faizal Ibrahim Biao, died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

The older Biao had reportedly served as chairman of Barangay Kandaga in Talipao town in Sulu.

The Indanan Municipal Police Station, in a report to PRO-BAR’s headquarters in Camp SK Pendatun in Parang town in Maguindanao del Norte, said the victims were riding a motorcycle together when they were shot with assault rifles by men in a sports utility vehicle while they were motoring through in a secluded stretch of a highway in Barangay Kajatian in Indanan

Their attackers had immediately escaped, according to investigators in the municipal police and barangay officials who responded to the incident.

Indanan is near Jolo, the capital town of Sulu.

Provincial police officials said investigators have enlisted the support of local executives in identifying the gunmen behind the atrocity.