Ranking MILF commander killed
Senior Superintendent Ismael Ali, director of the Shariff Kabunsuan provincial police, identified the slain MILF commander as Tapah Tabunaway, 58, who died on the spot from gunshot wounds he sustained in the encounter.
Ali said Tabunaway and his followers first attacked a fishing village in Barangay Laguitan in Datu Blah Sinsuat, a coastal town in Shariff Kabunsuan and sprayed with automatic weapons several houses owned by MNLF leader Kaguih Minalang and his men, provoking a two hour running gunbattle.
Responding MNLF members from a nearby village, led by Usop Amerol, managed to outflank Tabunaway and his followers, killing him and his son named Radjak.
Ali said Usop’s men also gunned down a retreating companion of the Tabunaways.
“The groups of Minalang and Tabunaway have long been locked in territorial disputes. They have fought several gunbattles in the past that displaced so many innocent civilians,” Ali said.
The hostilities in Barangay Laguitan forced some 300 families to evacuate to neutral grounds as news on the gearing up for retaliation by MILF forces against the allies Amerol and Minalang spread in the community. – John Unson
Six other MILF fighters were wounded in the other day’s firefight in the area, according to Ali.
Eid Kabalu, spokesman of the MILF, said ranking leaders of the front in Datu Blah Sinsuat and nearby Lebak and Kalamansig towns, both in Sultan Kudarat are now helping to pacify the feuding factions.
Preceding the skirmishes in Datu Blah Sinsuat was a running firefight in Malabang, Lanao del Sur between two MILF factions, which resulted to the death of a ranking Maranaw commander of the front, Maunara Dumatar.
Four of Dumatar’s men, Kasan Gandamra, Asrab Taub, Apo Burob, and Mama Utingan, were also killed by their enemies led by another MILF commander, Orak Tawakil Pangadag, also an ethnic Maranaw. – John Unson
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