MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Four of the 13 bandits killed by soldiers in separate encounters in Maguindanao on Sunday were bomb experts trained by slain Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan, local officials and barangay leaders said Monday.
Three commanders of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), Yusof Abesalih, also known as “Bisaya,” and siblings Norodin and Salahudin Indong, were among the 13 gunmen soldiers shot dead in firefights Friday afternoon in secluded areas in the adjoining Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay towns in the second district of Maguindanao.
Barangay folks, among them Moro farmers, said bandits named Jacaria, Mungkas, Bidory and Aliman, whom Marwan trained in fabrication of roadside bombs from October until December last year, were also killed in the encounters.
Marwan was killed by police commandos in a dawn raid on January 25 at his hideout in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
Local sources said Bidory and Aliman were among the bombers that perpetrated the deadly Dec. 31, 2014 bombing of the public market in Mlang town in northwest of North Cotabato.
Four soldiers were killed while six others were wounded in Sunday's BIFF-military gunfights.
Capt. Jo-Ann Petinglay, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said they have indeed been receiving persistent feedback from local officials and barangay leaders that some of the 13 BIFF gunmen killed by Scout Rangers and combatants of the 34th Infantry Battalion had studied how to assemble explosives that can be detonated from a distance using mobile phones.
"That is what we have been hearing from informants," Petinglay said.
Members of the municipal peace and order councils in Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay said Bisaya, feared for his brutality in dealing with Moro villagers that refuse to shell out “revolutionary tax,” was killed in one of the five BIFF-military encounters last Sunday.
Philstar
