Maranaws support Lanao Sur Army, police anti-terror ops

MARAWI CITY, Philippines — Local executives lauded the military for having prevented Dawlah Islamiya terrorists from getting close to the town proper of Marogong in Lanao del Sur, killing four and wounding five others in a brief clash Thursday.

“The military is efficiently carrying out its peacekeeping mission there. We in the provincial government are also doing our best to address the security issues besetting Marogong municipality” Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. said Friday.

Members of the multi-sector Lanao del Sur Provincial Peace and Order Council, led by Adiong as presiding chairperson, have also assured of their support for the joint police and military anti-terror operations in Marogong.

“I’m grateful to the Maranaws and non-Maranaws helping us solve this issue. This is resolvable,” Adiong said.

Army Scout Rangers shot dead four members of the Dawlah Islamiya and wounded five others in an encounter on Thursday morning in Barangay Piangologan in Marogong.

The incident was preceded by the group’s circulation last week of threats, via text messages and Facebook, to attack the town proper of Marogong if the police will not set free its members arrested and detained for various criminal offenses in a series of law-enforcement operations in Lanao del Sur in recent weeks.

Sources from Lanao del Sur’s Islamic religious community confirmed to reporters Friday that besides the Dawlah Islamiya’s four fatalities, five other terrorists were wounded in Thursday’s incident in Barangay Piangologan whom they said were carried by companions as they hastily escaped when they sensed that more Army reinforcements were closing in.

The encounter left a Scout Ranger, Pfc. Jemric Pol Contingo, dead and three others, Corporals Cronel Ducrao and Regi Macahilig and Pfc. Noel Notario, wounded.

Adiong said their provincial social welfare office and the local government unit of Marogong are together attending to the needs of more than 3,000 Marogong residents who abandoned their homes and relocated to nearby towns last week after the Dawlah Islamiya warned of attacks using fictitious Facebook accounts.

Some members of the Dawlah Islamiya were followers of the slain siblings Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute, the founders of the fanatical Maute terrorist group that instigated the deadly and destructive May 23 to October 16, 2017 siege of Marawi City.

Records from the military’s Western Mindanao Command and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region indicate that 27 Dawlah Islamiya members perished in one encounter after another in Lanao del Sur with pursuing policemen and soldiers in the past 22 months.