3 Maute suspects nabbed in Cagayan de Oro

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY , Philippines  – Police yesterday arrested three suspected members of the Maute group of extremists in this city.

City police spokesman Chief Insp. Mardy Hortillosa said Gazim Mantawazi Abdullah, Monaliza Solaiman Romato and Tahera Romato Taher were arrested in a rented safehouse in Barangay Macasandig by joint police and military operatives armed with a search warrant.

Police said a certain Irene Romato Idris escaped during the raid.

Lawmen seized four M203 grenades, C4 explosives, detonating cords and other bomb-making equipment.

Hortillosa said Idris is a distant relative of Ominta “Farhana” Romato, the mother of brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute who are leading the extremist group that attacked Marawi City on May 23.

Idris reportedly rented the house as a sanctuary and staging point for terrorist attacks outside Marawi.

Monaliza Romato, on the other hand, is suspected of providing financial and logistical support to the Maute group.

She reportedly replaced the Maute matriarch in providing support for the terrorist group. Her son, a certain Colingling, is serving as intelligence agent and liaison of the Maute terrorists in this city, the military said.

Officials of the military’s Martial Law Special Action Group said the arrests were made following intelligence reports tracing the suspects to their hideout.

The raid was part of the military’s continuous tracking and monitoring of personalities under the arrest orders issued by the Department of National Defense as implementer of martial law declared by President Duterte.

Officials said the arrest prevented the Maute group from staging diversionary attacks.

Hundreds of Maute militants, flying the black flag of the Islamic State (IS) and backed by foreign fighters, seized swathes of Marawi City on May 23.

The fighting prompted Duterte to declare martial law across Mindanao in a bid to contain the Islamic militants who wanted to carve out a caliphate in the region.

The firefights in Marawi have dragged on for over a month, leaving more than 400 people dead and thousands homeless.

This developed as troops retrieved the body of a suspected foreign fighter of the Maute group in the battleground in Marawi yesterday.

Capt. Jo-Ann Pentinglay, spokesperson for the military’s Western Mindanao Command, said the troops recovered the cadaver of a suspected Singaporean jihadist.

The recovery brought to 11 the total number of suspected foreign fighters reportedly killed by government troops in the offensive against the Maute gunmen.

The troops also recovered a .50 caliber machine gun and 14 other high-powered firearms as they took control of the area of Dansalan College, one of the strongholds occupied by the terrorists in their siege of Marawi a month ago.

The school served as machine gun nest and sniper position of the terrorists, aided by foreign fighters, the military said. – With Edith Regalado, Michael Punongbayan, Roel Pareño