COTABATO CITY , Philippines — Police have released photos of two men seen leaving a bag containing an improvised explosive device (IED) inside the Southseas Mall here, just outside of which an explosion about an hour later would kill two people and hurt several others on New Year’s Eve.
Supt. Rolly Octavio of the Cotabato City police said the release of the photos or videograb of the suspects might prompt them or their accomplices to launch diversionary attacks to cover their escape.
Octavio said the photos were taken from recordings of security cameras positioned at the second floor of the Southseas Mall where the two were seen leaving a bag near a lotto outlet. “This for now is already a good lead to start with,” Octavio said.
About an hour after the deadly blast, police found the unattended bag and defused the IED inside the bag.
Octavio said Cotabato City Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, chair of the local inter-agency peace and order council, offered a P500,000 reward for anyone who could provide information that could lead to the arrest of the two men.
Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID) covering Cotabato City and the nearby Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces, said they have established the identity of one of the two suspects but declined to reveal it.
“One is positively identified. He was a former follower of ex-Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter vice chairman, Mohamad Ali Tambako who transferred to the group of (Kasan) Indal, a certified bomber trained by then Abdulbasit Usman,” Sobejana said.
He urged local communities to help prevent or stop terror acts aimed at misleading authorities pursuing the suspects.
Sobejana is helping oversee, along with Chief Supt. Eliseo Rasco of the Police Regional Office-12, the newly formed Task Group Southseas, an interim inter-agency bloc investigating the New Year’s Eve explosion.
Officials of the 6th ID, which has three brigades and more than a dozen battalions scattered in central Mindanao, earlier said the Dec. 31 attack may have been fueled by “vendetta.”
The attack came after the killing of four members of a local Islamic State-inspired group in an encounter with military operatives last Dec. 22 in a marshland in Barangay Tatak bordered by Mamasapano, Rajah Buayan and General Salipada Pendatun towns in Maguindanao.
Cotabato City, under Administrative Region 12, is inside Maguindanao, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Two of the fatalities in the Dec. 22 encounter were foreigners – Singaporean Abu Hud Zain and Indonesian Abdulrahid Ruhmisanti.
Local officials and traditional Moro elders in the three towns identified the two other fatalities as Salamuddin, son of the cleric Salahuddin Hassan, and Mohammad Ali Hassan.
Mohammad is a younger brother of Hassan, a henchman of the radical cleric Abdulmalik Esmael, also known as Abu Toraife.
A Marine captain led the clandestine operation that led to the death of the four militants.
Local officials had suggested to President Duterte the granting of either medals of valor or the distinguished conduct star citations to the agents involved in the raid, which also killed Army Sgt. Melanio Diaz.
Traditional Moro datus and members of the municipal peace and order councils in Maguindanao said Hassan, notorious for stoking hatred for non-Muslims through khutab or Friday worship sermon, still has four foreign terrorists under his protection.
Two of them are Asians identified only as Ridhum and Hirman, possibly aliases, and two others –East Yunos Amagandhi and a certain Sharbatli – were possibly from the Middle East, based on their facial features.
Abu Toraife’s group was blamed for the deadly Aug. 28 and Sept. 2 bombings in Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat that left five people dead and 30 injured.
“The Cotabato City peace and order council, the police and the 6th ID are doing their best to solve that case, a clear act of terror. They are on top of the situation,” ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman said yesterday.
ARMM’s Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares on Friday ordered all municipal police offices in Maguindanao and in nearby Lanao del Sur province to monitor possible movements of groups sympathetic to the four terrorists killed on Dec. 22.
Hataman reiterated anew his appeal to netizens not to post “wild speculations” on social media like Facebook in order to prevent confusion and panic among the people.
“We in the ARMM care for Cotabato City and all its Christian, lumad and Muslim residents because it is the seat of the ARMM government. Our regional capitol is located in the city,” Hataman said. – Jaime Laude, Romina Cabrera