Over 2 dozen pro-ISIS fighters surrender in Philippines

COTABATO CITY – Over 2 dozen pro-ISIS militants have surrendered to the military in the restive southern Philippine region, officials said Wednesday.

Military photos released to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner show BIFF militants, their faces blurred to hide their identities, following their surrender March 30, 2020 in Maguindanao province. 

Officials said the militants, all 29 of them, were all members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters under Imam Minimbang, alias Kagi Karialan, and surrendered to the 33^rd Infantry Battalion in Maguindanao’s Rajah Buayan town on Monday.

Details of their surrender were not immediately known, but Col. Jose Narciso, commander of the 601st Infantry Brigade, said: “A holistic approach, applying military and non-military actions will be sustained, and hoping that the other various militant factions in the region will be laying down their arms.”

He said the militants also yielded assorted high-powered weapons, including automatic rifles, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, sub-machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, an ISIS flag, and a BIFF flag, among others.

Maj. Gen. Diosdado Carreon, commander of the Joint Task Force Central, said security forces continue its offensives against the BIFF following the mass surrender. He said among those who surrendered was Mack Mangulamas, a BIFF commander; and two explosives experts Sarabi Abdulgapor and Anwar Sulay.

“This feat inspires us to intensify our offensives even more,” Carreon said

Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, lauded the soldiers for the surrender of a huge number of militants, calling the achievement a “breakthrough” in the government’s war against terrorism.

“This achievement is a breakthrough for the Joint Task Force Central. With the weakening of their group, we are confident that more fighters will be compelled to cross the line,” he said.

The BIFF is founded by a senior leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Ameril Umbra Kato, after he split with the rebel group in 2008. Kato accused MILF chieftain Murad Ebrahim of accepting Manila’s limited autonomy offer rather than full independence.

Kato resorted to violent campaigns in the South in his struggle for independence, but he died of heart attack in April 2015. Minimbang took over the BIFF leadership, but was removed in 2016 and replaced by Esmael Abubakar, alias Kumander Bungos, as Kato’s successor based on a supposed letter he signed before he died.

Since then, Minimbang put up another faction of the BIFF and carried Kato’s terror campaign and pledged allegiance to ISIS. (Mindanao Examiner)

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