Two new gangs have reportedly emerged from the Pentagon: the Dragon Group and Suicide Bomber Squad, which have been blamed for a spate of bombings in commercial centers in Central Mindanao.
The attacks were said to have been aimed at intimidating businessmen to pay "protection money" to the new band of extortionists.
Sources in the Muslim community in Central Mindanao have confirmed reports that five people — among them a brother of a key leader of the secessionist rebel group — are fighting to take command of the Pentagon kidnap gang.
Contrary to claims of the Philippine National Police (PNP), sources said the Pentagon’s chieftain is not Tahir Alonto but Marohombsar, who had planned the gang’s kidnapping activities.
Maneuvering to be the new Pentagon boss are Alonto, an influential imam based in the Liguasan Marsh, Sammy Tilaka, Mayangkang Saguile and a certain Ulama Camid.
The military said Alonto, who has vast combat experience as a guerrilla, has links with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Two years ago, an MILF band led by Alonto’s wife stormed the Sarangani provincial jail in a daring raid to set him free, and he has been at large since then.
Alonto comes from Barangay Cudal in Pagalungan in Maguindanao, which coincidentally is the hometown of Hashim Salamat, the MILF’s reclusive leader.
Tilaka and Saguile, on the other hand, were followers of slain kidnap gang leader Abogado Bago, alias Commander Mubarak, who headed the Mubarak Gang, which Marohombsar helped found in 1989.
Implicated in more than 70 kidnappings in Central Mindanao, the Mubarak Gang ended its three-year reign of terror on Dec. 7, 1992 after Mubarak was killed in a shootout with Marines in his hideout in Pantukan, Davao del Norte.
Military intelligence said two other kidnap gang leaders, who are linked with the MILF, could also be interested in becoming Pentagon chieftain.
One of them reportedly gave sanctuary last year to the kidnappers of four Chinese and their Filipino interpreter in his hideout on the boundary of Columbio, Sultan Kudarat and Buluan, Maguindanao.
Sources said Alonto met secretly last week with seven key Pentagon leaders at the Liguasan Marsh to discuss the restructuring of the gang’s leadership.
Among those reportedly present at the meeting was a notorious kidnapper who helped Marohombsar set up the Pentagon Gang in Digos City last year.
"The Pentagon has many young recruits and this is a concern the police and military should focus on," said another source who asked to be identified only as Ustadz Samsudin.
The 45-year-old Egyptian-trained missionary said last week’s attack on a detachment of the 8th Marine Battalion Landing Team in Cotabato City could be a "test mission" for recruits to the kidnap gang.
A Marine sergeant and four others, including a saleslady, were killed and six others wounded in the ensuing gunbattle between troops and the raiders.