BIFF now called 'terrorists,' admits ISIS ties

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — The Army's 6th Infantry Division will start referring  to Imam Ameril Ombra Kato and his men only as plain bandits and terrorists, not as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

"They have been making lives of non-combatants, the civilians, in areas where they operate so miserable. They don't have a clear revolutionary ideology so they are not revolutionaries as what they assert," said Colonel Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of 6th ID, which has jurisdiction over Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces.

Hermoso said Kato's gang of mostly wanted gunmen does not qualify as a revolutionary group for its continued use of civilians either as human shields when they engage in combat with government forces or as subjects for excessive taxation to sustain their needs.

Kato and a group of radical clerics, some wanted for criminal offenses, organized the BIFF in 2010, after he was booted out while senior commander from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front due to insubordination and irreconcilable differences with the MILF's central committee.

Hermoso said units of the 6th ID will continue to guard against attacks by bandits led by Kato and his two trusted lieutenants, clerics Tambako and Karialan, whose followers are suspected to have perpetrated more than 20 roadside bombings in Maguindanao since January.

The group's spokesman, Abu Misry Mama, an ethnic Maguindanaon, announced on Saturday that they have allied with the dreaded Independent State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS and supports the ambition of its leader, Abu Bak'r Al-Baghdadi, to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East.

Kato's men are notorious for their ruthless enforcement of a Taliban-style justice system in areas where they have lairs.

Warfare is prohibited during the holy Islamic month of Ramadhan where physically-fit Muslims fast from dawn to dusk for one lunar cycle, or about 28-29 days, as a religious obligation.

"They launch attacks during the Islamic Ramadhan season, causing massive dislocation of civilians," Hermoso said.

Hermoso said soldiers pursuing bandits that repeatedly attacked this week the Army detachments in Maguindanao's Sharif Saidona and Datu Piang towns found shabu in sealed sachets and drug sniffing paraphernalia along their escape routes.

"That's an indication that they are hooked to illegal drugs too," Hermoso said.