Bandits attack Army detachment in NCotabato

From the Philippine Star (Apr 4): Bandits attack Army detachment in NCotabato

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Members of the bandit group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) raided another Army detachment in Central Mindanao Wednesday night, the region’s third in three days.

No one was reported killed or wounded in the latest attempt by bandits to take over a roadside detachment of the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Ulandang in Midsayap, North Cotabato, but the incident triggered panic in the area.

The Midsayap municipal police said the gunmen first surrounded the detachment and opened fire with assault rifles and shoulder-fire 40 MM grenade projectiles.

Although outnumbered, the soldiers manning the detachment returned fire, preventing the BIFF gunmen from closing in.

The bandits scampered away when the soldiers inside the detachments fired at them with M-60 machineguns.

Barangay folks said three bandits, who were either wounded or killed in the ensuing firefight, were seen being carried away by companions as the latter fled in haste.

The spokesman of BIFF, Abu Misry Mama, said the attacks on military positions in Central Mindanao were amde in retaliation to the death of a companion whom he said was earlier “arrested, tortured and killed” by soldiers in Maguindanao.

He said their slain companion was intercepted at an Army checkpoint, went missing, and was found dead later by relatives.

The Army’s 6th Infantry Division, which has jurisdiction over Maguindanao and North Cotabato, denied any knowledge of Mama’s assertion.

The Maguindanao provincial police have no record of such an incident either.

The BIFF attacked the detachment of the 40th IB in Midsayap after members of the group attempted to take over two roadside outposts of the Army’s 1st Mechanized Brigade at the border of Maguindanao’s Salibo and Datu Piang towns.

An ethnic Maguindanaon farmer was wounded in one of the attacks.

The BIFM is led by Ustadz Ameril Umrah Kato, a former senior commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front who was booted out for serious infractions of the MILF rules.

http://www.philstar.com/nation/2013/04/04/926905/bandits-attack-army-detachment-ncotabato