Ambush victims’ kin girding for retaliation

COTABATO CITY — Relatives of six Muslim villagers killed in an ambush over the weekend in Alamada, North Cotabato by suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels have reportedly started preparing for retaliation, raising the specter of a bloody showdown between local MILF forces and the town’s indigenous communities.

Alamada Mayor Ernesto Concepcion said the police are now initiating peaceful means to defuse tension in Upper Tali—tayen, a hinterland community where heavily armed men staged the ambush, which also wounded three other villagers.

The slain villagers — Sandatu Sultan, 28; Manap Agal, 29; Timbura Malidas, 10; Didayen, 46, and Gumbay, 40, both surnamed Malindingan; and Badrira Maan, 24 — were on their way to the market in a nearby barangay when they were fired upon, killing them on the spot.

Their three wounded companions were identified as Kalasuma Malides, 35; Sigma Mama, 30; and Nur Saddam Agal, 11.

Army intelligence sources said residents of Upper Talitayen are known to be supportive of the military and police’s campaign against MILF marauders in Alamada, a hinterland town in the first district of North Cotabato.

The sources said the victims had refused to pay "protection money" to MILF emissaries a week before the ambush.

Concepcion said police are now trying to determine if the ambushers were the same people behind the attack on a nearby farming village three weeks ago, which left four farmers dead and two others wounded.