Terror leader, wife killed in firefight in Southern Philippines

COTABATO CITY - Philippine police killed a senior leader of the local affiliate of the Islamic State extremist group and his wife following an alleged gunfight in this southern city, officials said Monday.

Officials said policemen recovered improvised bombs and components, fragmentation grenades, a drone, and two handguns from the couple's hideout in Rosary Heights 6  village here. 

This was confirmed by regional police commander brigadier general John Guyguyon, who said a team of policemen was about to serve a search and arrest warrant to primary target Aiman Mandi Ali when they came under fire.

An exchange of gunfire ensued, leaving Ali dead. His wife, according to Guyguyon, fired her .45 pistol towards policemen entering their living room. She was killed in the firefight.

“The warrants about their involvement in the bus bombing in the region,” the police official said.

Guyguyon said Ali was a senior leader of the Daulah Islamiyah, a local name of the Islamic State, whose membership comprises fighters from several Filipino militant factions, including the Maute Group fighting out of Lanao.

 

Lt. Col. Lino Capellan, a local police spokesman in Sultan Kudarat province, said Ali was working under Abu Turaife, one of the hardcore leaders of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which signed a peace deal with Manila in 2014 and controls a Muslim autonomous area in the south.

 

“He (Ali) was the one who accompany the suspects who placed the bomb inside a passenger bus,” Capellan said, referring to November 6 incident where a bomb went off inside the unit of Yellow Bus Line not far from their depot in Tacurong City and killed a passenger dead and wounding 11 others.

 

Capellan said Aiman was also linked to the Dec. 31, 2018 bombing of the South Seas Mall in this city that left two people dead and dozens wounded.

 

Officials have blamed militants linked to the group in a series of attacks in the region.

 

In April this year, at least six people were injured when a homemade bomb exploded aboard a passenger bus in the Parang town. Three months earlier, a 5-year-old boy was killed and six others, including his two younger siblings, were injured in a similar attack in Aleosan town. In both cases, IS-linked militants were blamed. (Jeoffrey Maitem)