3 wounded in 'rido'-related ambush in Maguindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – Three members of an Ilonggo clan were injured in Barangay Rebuken in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao late Wednesday afternoon.
 
Jaime Soledad, his son Abrille and a relative named Jimboy Embad were in a white Isuzu trooper en route from Cotabato City to their residence northwest of Barangay Rebuken when the gunmen shot at their vehicle with rifles.
 
Responding police and barangay officials immediately rushed them to a private hospital in Cotabato City.
 
Investigators found spent shells of M16 and M14 rifles scattered in the spots where the ambushers positioned themselves.
 
Barangay elders told reporters the Soledads are locked in a “rido” (clan war) with an equally large Moro family in Sultan Kudarat.
 
The Army’s 603rd Infantry Brigade, which operates in Sultan Kudarat and nearby towns in the first district of Maguindanao, deployed soldiers to Barangay Rebuken to keep the peace.

The incident was preceded by the detonation of a roadside bomb in Shariff Saydona town early Wednesday morning.   
 
Police investigators said the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters was behind the roadside bombing in Barangay Nabundas.
 
The improvised explosive device went off just seconds after the last vehicle in the convoy of Maguindanao’s police director, Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello, had passed by.
 
Tello said it was possible that the blasting mechanism of the IED malfunctioned, causing delay in its detonation.
 
Tello and his police personnel were bound for Barangay Tukanalipao in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, for prayer rites there in commemoration of the second anniversary of the bloody January 25, 2015“Mamasapano incident.
 
The clash claimed the lives of 44 personnel of the police’s elite Special Action Force, 17 guerillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and at least five villagers.
 
The encounter was a consequence of the raid before dawn the same day in Inug-ug area in Mamasapano by policemen to arrest Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan.
 
The SAF troopers were retreating from the hideout of Marwan, whom they shot dead for resisting arrest, when they were attacked from different directions by local MILF guerillas and a third group, the BIFF.