Usman rejoined BIFF before Tambako's capture - AFP

From InterAksyon (Mar 17): Usman rejoined BIFF before Tambako's capture - AFP



Mohammad Ali Tambako, escorted by CIDG agents, arrives at Villamor Airbase after his capture in General Santos City.

Bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman, who is one of the targets of the continuing “all-out” military offensive in Maguindanao, left the band of Mohammad Ali Tambako before the latter’s capture and has rejoined units of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters led by commanders who go by the aliases “Karialan” and “Bungos,” the military said.

At the same time, Brigadier General Joselito Kakilala, claimed that military units operating against Tambako’s “Justice for Islamic Movement,” a breakaway faction of the BIFF, deliberately allowed him and some of his followers to slip through their dragnet so they could be captured.

Tambako and five of his aides were captured in General Santos City Sunday night.

“Sinadya ‘yun para lumabas siya para mahuli siya, ganu’n lang ‘yun, sinadya (That was deliberate so he would emerge and be captured, it’s as simple as that, it was deliberate),” Kakilala claimed.

Usman managed to escape the disastrous January 25 Special Action Force mission in Mamasapano town to get Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan,” who is said to have been killed at the cost of 44 police commandos, 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters and at least five civilians dead in the ensuing clash.

Marwan and Usman were holing out at the time in a Mamasapano village known to be a stronghold of the BIFF, which broke away from the MILF in 2008.

After Mamasapano, Usman joined up with the JIM.

But on Thursday, after he lost a nephew to the military offensive, Usman left Tambako’s group, which the military earlier said had 70 fighters, and rejoined the much larger BIFF force, which Kakilala estimated at around 230 men despite losing more than 100 men since the start of the offensive in late February.

Kakilala said they remained confident about getting Usman as well as decimating the BIFF, who remain in the marshlands of what the military calls Maguindanao’s “SPMS box” -- for the towns of Salvo, Pagatin, Mamasapano, and Shariff Aguak -- after splintering into small groups to make it harder for the military.

Kakilala claimed Tambako had decided to escape both because of the JIM’s dwindling strength and after Usman left his group.

Although AFP chief General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. earlier described Tambako as a major catch because of “contacts within fundamentalist Islamic jihadists around the world,” Kakilala said the JIM leader was “not really a warrior unlike Karilan.”

“Kuwan ‘yan, scholar ‘yan siya … kuwan pa, swivel chair commander ‘yan, may comfort zone ‘yan, hindi makatagal ‘yan sa heat of battle, lalabas talaga sa comfort zone niya (He’s a scholar … and a swivel chair commander, with a comfort zone, who cannot stand the heat of battle, he will really emerge from his comfort zone),” Kakilala said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/107109/usman-rejoined-biff-before-tambakos-capture---afp