COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro regional police on Monday deployed personnel of the elite Special Action Force in three towns in Lanao del Sur and in Marawi City to help local officials guard against clan wars and protect constituents from local terrorists.
Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region led the symbolic send-off rite for members of the 4th Special Action Battalion to Malabang, Masiu and Marantao towns in Lanao del Sur and in Marawi City, the capital of the province.
Nobleza said the contingent dispatched to Lanao del Sur and Marawi City is composed of personnel of the 41st, 43rd, 44th and 45th Special Action Companies, which are directly under the operational control of PRO-BAR.
Local officials from Malabang, Masiu and Marantao graced Monday’s troop departure program facilitated by Nobleza and other PRO-BAR officials at the parade ground of Camp SK Pendatun in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte.
Nobleza, in a message, urged the SAF personnel to religiously adhere, to the best they can, to their bounden duty to serve and protect the barangay folks in Lanao del Sur and in Marawi City that they will guard from criminals and terrorists.
Local executives in Lanao del Sur told reporters that their municipal governments, the PRO-BAR and units of the Army’s 103rd Infantry Brigade are working together to address violent religious extremism in the province while cooperating to resolve amicably the bloody family feuds involving constituents.
The PRO-BAR, the provincial peace and order council led by Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. and Army officials in the province settled 13 bloody clan wars in 2023 and had also secured the surrender in batches of 86 members of the Dawlah Islamiya terror group during the period.