Cops nab BIFF members on mission to bomb evacuation sites

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Policemen intercepted Sunday night three members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters out on a mission to bomb evacuation sites full of people displaced by ongoing military operation against the outlawed group.

Inspector Harris Lino, chief of the Sharif Aguak municipal police, said the team that apprehended BIFF members Omar Sawal, Rashid Ayungan and John Yunao recovered from them fragmentation grenades and handguns.

Lino said the three men were on their way out of the municipal center of Sharif Aguak, the old provincial capital, riding a motorcycle together when they were stopped for an inspection by patrolling policemen.

Local officials have confirmed that Sawal, Ayungan and Yunao all belong to the BIFF.

Lino said they are now preparing criminal charges against the three men.

The BIFF had attacked evacuation sites in different towns in the province, where thousands had sought refuge following its incursions on peasant enclaves and military installations during the Islamic Ramadhan fasting season in 2012 and 2013.

Army intelligence sources said the three BIFF members Lino and his men arrested Sunday night were out to set off explosives in evacuation sites presently accommodating Moro families dislocated by the on-going military offensives against the outlawed group.

More than 8,000 families were dislocated by the military’s offensive against the BIFF, which started second week of February, after its deadly incursions at villages along marshlands that connect to the Liguasan Delta at the border of Pagalungan, Maguindanao and Pikit, North Cotabato.

Tension has been high in at least five Maguindanao towns, where Army and Marine combatants have been searching for BIFF bandits since Saturday.