5 slain kidnappers believed to be Kato recruits

MIDSAYAP, North Cotabato, Philippines – Local Muslim clerics believe that the five men killed in Monday’s bungled kidnapping here of a Filipino-Chinese merchant were new recruits of the Bangsamoro Islam Freedom Fighters (BIFF) led by foreign-trained jihadist Ameril Ombra Kato.

Kato bolted the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) two months ago and formed the BIFF along with more than 700 followers, including some relatives.

The five slain kidnappers tried to snatch hardware store owner Frank Chung but were gunned down by responding policemen and operatives of the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion.

Soldiers and policemen, led by Army Lt. Col. Roy Galido and Superintendent Frank Anito, arrived at Chung’s store and shot dead one of the suspects, a certain Abubakar, when he pulled out a gun while being accosted.

The four other suspects boarded a pick-up truck when they saw their lookout fall, but civilian volunteers managed to block their escape route and, with the help of soldiers and policemen, killed them in a running firefight.

Another suspect, who could hardly speak Cebuano or Ta­galog, gave himself up when he saw soldiers closing in.

The slain kidnappers, according to Muslim clerics, could be out on a “test mission” as a requisite for their admission into the BIFF.

“We have, in fact, relayed the information to the military that this group has a plan to perpetrate kidnappings in Central Mindanao even before last Monday’s incident here in Midsayap,” an ustadz (preacher) told reporters.

Kato and his men attacked civilian communities in Central Mindanao in August 2008 after the aborted signing by the government and the MILF of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain.