Overshadowed leader tagged in BIFF sabotage plot, bombings

From the Philippine Star (Apr 28): Overshadowed leader tagged in BIFF sabotage plot, bombings



In Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao, a disgruntled leader of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters was allegedly behind the attempt to bomb a newly fixed bridge.

Bandit allegedly coddling clean-shaven Usman

Fingers point to a group of bandits led by a griping Imam Karialan as behind the recent bombings in Central Mindanao and an attempt to destroy a bridge in Datu Unsay, Maguindanao.

Sources from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters said the irate Karialan felt left out with the takeover of a rival, the younger Imam Esmael Abubakar, of the leadership of the BIFF after the demise of founder Imam Ameril Umbra Kato two weeks ago.

"He is asserting that he is more qualified to lead the BIFF," a barangay official said in the Maguindanaon vernacular.

While Abubakar, better known as Bongos, is also a foreign-trained cleric, he has less experience in actual guerilla engagements compared to Karialan.

Local officials and a senior executive in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, who was born and raised in the same barangay where Kato grew up, said they have also been receiving persistent feedback that it was the group of Karialan that pulled off last week's bombings in Central Mindanao to sabotage the leadership of the BIFF's new figurehead.

"He also wants to avenge the deaths of his blood brothers, BIFF Commanders Norodin and Salahudin, who were both killed in an encounter with the military in Maguindanao in early April," a local official in Datu Saudi, Maguindanao said Tuesday.

Investigators had said the motorcycle-riding men that set off last week fragmentation grenades at a busy stretch of the Sinsuat Avenue in Cotabato City and near a police outpost in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao could be members of the BIFF.

Abu Misry Mama, spokesman of the BIFF's now Abubakar-led command core, denied they were responsible for the bombings and the attempt on the same day to set off a bomb near a post of an Army Special Forces unit in Cotabato City.

"It was the disgruntled group of Karialan that perpetrated the bombings. That is what we have heard from our constituents who are privy to his (Karialan's) activities," a town official said.

Coddling Usman?

Similarly, talks are rife that it is the group of Karialan now coddling wanted foreign-trained bomber Abdul Basit Usman somewhere in Tatapan District in the second district of Maguindanao.

Usman is wanted both by the Philippine and U.S. governments for his involvement in deadly terror attacks in years past.

"Basit is now a clean shaven Basit with hair neatly cut, cut so short," a source said.

Captain Jo-Ann Petinglay, spokesperson of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, on Monday called on the public to remain vigilant amid threats of BIFF attacks on public places and civilian targets.

On April 23, soldiers foiled an attempt to bomb the Meta Bridge in Datu Unsay, Maguindanao which government engineers have just fixed following an earlier bombing that destroyed its railings.

Petinglay said it was a vigilant passer-by who noticed the bomb, rigged at one side of the bridge, enabling ordinance experts to promptly dispose it off.

A soldier was killed while four others were injured when members of the outlawed BIFF detonated a roadside bomb on the same bridge last year.

So powerful was the explosion that it shattered the railings of the concrete bridge and weakened its overpass bed.

The Maguindanao 2nd District Engineering Office completed just two weeks ago the repair of the bombed out bridge.

http://www.philstar.com/nation/2015/04/28/1448828/overshadowed-leader-tagged-biff-sabotage-plot-bombings