Soldiers seize Dawlah Islamiya arms cache

COTABATO CITY — An Army unit had seized combat rifles, anti-tank rocket and grenade launchers abandoned by members of the Dawlah Islamiya when they sensed that soldiers were approaching their location in Sultan sa Barongis, Maguindanao del Sur on Sunday morning.

Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, told reporters on Monday that the terrorists who fled left behind an M16 rifle, two M14 rifles, an Ultimax rifle, two M1 Garand rifles, a .50 caliber bolt-action Barrett sniper rifle, a B-40 rocket launcher, an M79 grenade launcher and large improvised explosive devices, now in the custody of the 1^st Mechanized Infantry Battalion.

In a report to Nafarrete, the commanding officer of the 1^st Mechanized IB, Lt. Col. Robert Betita, said the arms cache was found in Sitio Sitio Madanding in Barangay Angkyamat in Sultan sa Barongis.

Personnel of the 1^st Mechanized IB were reportedly dispatched to Sitio Madanding to check on reports by barangay officials about the presence in the area of more than 10  Dawlah Islamiya members soliciting food and money from villagers.

Soldiers belonging to different units of 6^th ID based in different towns in Maguindanao del Sur had killed 31 members of the allies Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in one encounter after another since January.

Among the terrorists neutralized by soldiers during the period was the notorious Kagui Karialan, leader of the biggest of three factions in the BIFF, and his 11 followers, whom local officials said were all experts in fabrication of IEDs.

The Dawlah Islamiya and the BIFF are tagged in bombings, since 2014, of buses and establishments in Central Mindanao whose owners had refused to pay "protection money" and supply food to members of both groups holding out in areas near highways crisscrossing the region's Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces.