Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Southeast Asia

Philippines confirms death of senior militant blamed for December bombing in Marawi

2024-02-18

[BenarNews] The Philippine military on Monday confirmed the killing of a suspected senior Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Philippine govt soldiers kill 8 suspected Islamic State-linked militants in Mindanao firefight

2024-01-28

[BenarNews] Eight suspected Filipino snuffies belonging to a local group allied with Islamic State

That would be the attack on Mindanao State University.

According to military officials, the Filipino snuffies were apparently acting under the instructions of the Islamic State, which had earlier owned up to the attack.

"During the military operations the troops killed eight enemies," Brig. Gen. Yegor Rey Baroquillo Jr., commander of the 103rd, told BenarNews. After the firefight, troops retrieved the bodies of the slain bad boys, he said.

Baroquillo said four members of the Scout Rangers, who were maimed in the fighting, were brought to a local hospital. He did not divulge the extent of their wounds.

He said the troops were after the Marawi bombers and that search operations were focused on three Lanao towns believed to be strongholds of the DI-Maute: Pantao Ragat, Poona PIagapo and Munai.

Brig. Gen. Anthon Abrina, commander of the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, told BenarNews in a phone interview that "we are on heightened, red alert status following the encounter Thursday evening."

Troop reinforcements have been brought in and several checkpoints were established along the national highway leading to the areas "to ensure the safety of civilians in their respective communities," Abrina said.

The towns in Lanao are near the city of Marawi, where the bombing took place.

Military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. has blamed the DI-Maute group for the bombing, saying it was carried out as Dire Revenge for a military operation elsewhere in the south that left over a dozen snuffies killed.

Two of those killed were identified as Mundi Sawadjaan and Jalandoni Lucsadato. Sawadjaan has been identified as a sub-leader of the Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
, another Islamic State-linked group in the southern Philippines.

He was also the nephew of the late Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who was thought to be the group’s leader before he was killed in 2020. The elder Sawadjaan at one time was also named as the IS leader for the Philippines.

Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan also criminal masterminded a January 2019 bombing at a Catholic church on southern Jolo island that killed 23 people including an Indonesian couple blamed for the suicide kaboom, according to Philippine authorities.

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Southeast Asia

Philippines: Blast at Catholic Mass kills several

2023-12-03

The first report. No doubt more information will come soon.

[DW] An explosion during a Catholic Mass in Marawi city killed three people and left nine injured. Authorities believe it could be the work of turbans affiliated with the "Islamic State

There are a bunch of ISIS-linked groups in the Philippines, some of them no more than a family and its retainers.

An explosion at a Catholic Mass in a university gymnasium in Marawi city in the Philippines killed three and injured nine people on Sunday.

The explosion occurred at Mindanao State University in the Lanao del Sur province in the southern part of the country, the regional police director, Brigadier General Allan Nobleza, told news hounds. He added that investigations were still underway, and it was possible that the attack was planned by pro-Islamic State bully boys.

Classes were suspended and more forces were deployed across the university.

Marawi is the country's largest Moslem city and was besieged by Islamist turbans in for five months in 2017.

The Philippine military said on Saturday they had killed 11 bully boys, including members of the Dawlah Islamiyah-Philippines, a pro-Islamic State group, in a military operation the day before in Maguindanao del Sur province.

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Southeast Asia

Filipino soldier, militants killed in southern Philippine clash

2023-06-05

[BenarNews] A soldier and four Filipino turbans from the local arm of the Islamic State

“Downsizing”.

The Marawi crisis was the biggest outbreak of violence attributed to IS in Southeast Asia, killing more than 1,200 bad boys, soldiers and civilians and leaving the city in ruins.

The turbans killed Wednesday belonged to a group that threatened to launch attacks last week in the area, security officials said.

Soldiers from the 7th and 9th Scout Ranger Company caught up with the Daulah Islamiyah fighters on May 31 after tracking them through jungle territory, Army front man Maj. Jairus Mark Mira said.

Sounds like a good time was had by all — except the dead guys, of course.

In the heavy fighting that followed, Private First Class Jemric Pol Contingo was killed and three soldiers maimed.

All honour to them — they fought the good fight.

An assortment of weapons were recovered from the dead bad boys, Mira said, though several men from the group escaped.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of the 1st Infantry Division that oversees the area, sought on Friday to assure the public that troops were scouring the territory and the group would be unable to carry out further attacks.

"Government troops will not stop pursuing the local terrorist group until they are all neutralized," Nafarrete said in a statement.

The fighting happened days after military intelligence officials told BenarNews they had received reports that local DI leader Abu Zacharia — the IS emir for Southeast Asia — was preparing attacks in the region to avenge the capture of four of his comrades.

He succeeded Owaida Marohombsar (also known as Abu Dar), the leader of the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group who was killed in neighbouring Lanao del Norte province in March, 2019.

Abu Zacharia, who is also known as Jer Mimbantas and Faharudin Hadji Satar, survived a number of military operations in Lanao del Sur last year. He was part of the Maute group that seized Marawi in 2017, but escaped capture by authorities.

Little is known about him, except that he is a nephew of the late Alim Abdul Aziz Mimbantas, a ex-ranking leader in Lanao of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former rebel group based in the southern Philippines that signed a peace pact with the government and now controls an autonomous region.

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Southeast Asia

4 policemen killed, governor wounded in southern Philippine ambush

2023-02-18

[BenarNews] Four coppers were killed and three other people, including a provincial governor, were maimed in a roadside ambush in the volatile southern Philippines on Friday, officials said.

The coppers were escorting a convoy transporting Gov. Mamintal Adiong when unidentified button men attacked them on a highway near Maguing town in Lanao del Sur province, according to his younger brother Zia Alonto Adiong, a local politician.

"Four of his escorts were killed," Adiong told BenarNews, adding that his older brother was among three people maimed.

"The governor is safe. He is out of danger now," he said without elaborating.

Fahad Molok, the mayor of Maguing, told BenarNews that the area where the attack occurred was a controlled area of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Philippines’ largest former separatist group.

In 2014, the MILF signed a peace deal with Manila in exchange for control of a large Moslem autonomous area.

Under the terms of that deal, former MILF fighters agreed to give up their arms in exchange for money. A small number were also trained as coppers and members of the army.

The deal however did not sit well with some of the fighters, and many of them splintered and joined other rebel factions, or turned to banditry or guns for hire, officials said.

Molok said that local coppers quickly responded to the site "but the perpetrators were already gone."

It was not immediately clear what the motive for the attack was, and whether Adiong had any armed enemies.

Intense political rivalries and clan wars are all too common in the Philippines, especially in the southern island of Mindanao where years of insurgency has led to a proliferation of firearms.

Link

Southeast Asia

Marine, 7 militants killed in weekend clashes in southern Philippines

2023-02-07

[BenarNews] Seven button men with suspected links to Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
faceless myrmidons were slain over the weekend by police hunting for a group leader wanted in connection with the 2009 killing of a police superintendent in the southern Philippines, officials said.

The shootout in the Sulu Islands took place on Sunday, a day after a pro-Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
bully boy group ambushed a Marine patrol, leaving one of the troops dead and wounding three others in Lanao del Sur, another province in the volatile south.

In Sulu province, police launched a pre-dawn operation to arrest Juko Dahim, whose group had worked with Abu Sayyaf Group snuffies in several operations, officials said. He was wanted for his alleged role in the ambush killing of Senior Superintendent Jularisim Kasim, the provincial police chief, 14 years ago.

"However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
the heavily gang of Alganer Dahim and Juko Dahim sensed the arrival of the operating units, triggering the firefight," said Richard Verceles, operations chief of the Area Police Command for Western Mindanao.

Members of the Sulu field unit of the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, police commandos and other units were involved in Sunday’s operation.

Verceles said seven bully boys, including Juko Dahim, were killed in the 40-minute firefight. Two suspects were arrested and several high-powered assault rifles, ammunition and other war materials were recovered. A junior officer and two civilians were maimed as well.

Alganer Dahim escaped and is the subject of a manhunt, police said.

According to police, Juko Dahim and his group were members and supporters of dead Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom sub-leader Majan Sahidjuan (alias Apo Mike), whose group was blamed for cross-border kidnappings in Sabah, a state in nearby Malaysian Borneo.

Verceles said Juko was involved in kidnapping activities and armed encounters with government forces, killing civilians and illegal drug trade.

SATURDAY ATTACK
A day earlier, suspected Maute-Daulah Islamiyah faceless myrmidons launched a bushwhack of the Marine patrol in Marogong, a town in Lanao del Sur. The Maute group is one of many factions of Daulah Islamiyah, the local name for the Islamic State bad boy group.

"The Marines were not in uniform and were just bringing their short firearms because they were conducting community relations in the village," Lt. Col. Sergio Reyes Ronquillo, commander of the 2nd Marine Battalion Landing Team, told news hounds.

Ronquillo said Marine Sgt. Tonti Melbert Pamaran, who was leading the patrol, was killed instantly. Despite their injuries, the three maimed Marines fought the faceless myrmidons until reinforcements from a nearby camp arrived.

Previously, Philippine Army Chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner had said that the Daulah Islamiyah faceless myrmidons were losing strength after government troops attacked their camp in Maguing, Lanao del Sur, last March.

He said the faceless myrmidons numbered about 25 and were led by Faharudin Hadji Satar (also known as Abu Bakar or Abu Zacaria).

Link

Southeast Asia

Philippine soldier, 5 suspected Islamic State militants killed in clash

2022-04-30

[BenarNews] Five suspected pro-Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
murderous Moslems and a soldier were killed in a gunbattle when government forces stormed the holy warriors’ jungle camp in the southern Philippines, the military said Friday.

The clash that took place on Thursday outside the remote town of Butig in Lanao del Sur province was the deadliest during the holy month of Ramadan involving suspected Islamic bad boys. Ramadan in the Philippines ends on Sunday evening.

"Five members of the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group were killed," said Brig. Gen. Jose Maria Cuerpo II, commander of the 103rd Infantry Brigade, adding that a soldier was killed and a second was injured during the intense ground and air attacks.

"Daulah Islamiyah" means "Islamic State" in the local language. The group has members from several Filipino bad boy factions including the Maute Group fighting out of Lanao.

Cuerpo said the troops launched the operation following reports from residents weeks ago about the presence of gunnies in the mountainous part of the village of Ragayan. Those complaints corroborated intelligence reports about an alleged terror group stockpiling construction materials and food supplies in the area.

"The encounter is proof that the forces of Evil are out to disrupt the peace whenever they are capable," Cuerpo told news hounds.

"It is for this reason that the Army is aggressive in its counter-terrorism operations. We will never let them succeed. Despite the unfortunate loss of one of our brothers-in-arms, we will never abandon the fight against forces of Evil wherever they may be."

FOUR-HOUR CLASH
Local battalion commander Lt. Col. Romulus Rabara, who led the assault on Thursday, said about 40 members of the Maute Group were present in the area, precipitating a four-hour gunbattle. Troops attacked with rounds of heavy artillery, Rabara said Friday, adding that Air Force attack helicopters provided air support to the ground offensive.

Rabara told news hounds he believed other murderous Moslem could have been injured, based on radio monitoring on the ground.

After the clash, troops recovered four high-powered firearms, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, ammunition, and improvised landmine and other materials.

Since January across the southern Philippines, troops have killed nearly 70 Daulah Islamiyah bad boys, 109 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters
...a MILF splinter group aligned with the Islamic State...
(BIFF), and 49 Abu Sayyaf
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
holy warriors, according to military records.

BIFF is a breakaway of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a former separatist group that signed a peace deal with the government and heads a transitional government in a Moslem autonomous region in the south. Abu Sayyaf is known for kidnappings, beheadings and kabooms. One of its factions is allied with the Islamic State

In May 2017, Maute group leaders and others launched the siege of Marawi, the capital of Lanao del Sur, joined by murderous Moslems from the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The attack lasted five months and as many as 1,200 bad boys, troops, and non-combatants were killed before the military, supported by foreign intelligence, regained control of the southern Philippine city.

Five years later, some areas of Marawi continue to remain inaccessible because of unwent kaboom! ordnance that has yet to be removed. Thousands of citizens remain in transitional centers..

A large Moslem minority lives in the southern part of the Philippines, Asia’s only predominantly Catholic nation.

Link

Southeast Asia

Philippine Military Identifies IS Extremist Group’s New Regional Leader

2022-03-03

Follow up to this story from yesterdsy.

[BenarNews] The Filipino military said Wednesday that it had identified the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
turban group’s new emir for Southeast Asia as the leader of a local bully boy faction being targeted in an offensive underway in the southern Philippines.

Abu Zacharia (also known as Jer Mimbantas and Faharudin Hadji Satar) is believed to have survived the military operation in Lanao del Sur province that was launched on Tuesday and involved air strikes and ground troops.

"We have information that Abu Zacaria was designated as (IS) emir for Southeast Asia," Brig. Gen. Jose Maria Cuerpo II told news hounds on Wednesday. Cuerpo is the commanding officer of 103rd Infantry Brigade, which led the assault.

The offensive overran Zacharia’s base in a hinterland village in Maguing town, the military said. It announced that another suspected bully boy had died, bringing the corpse count to three Death Eaters and one soldier.

Lanao del Sur is where hundreds of pro-IS Death Eaters laid siege to Marawi, the historic provincial capital, for five months in 2017.

On Tuesday, the military launched pre-dawn ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
s while sending ground troops to attack positions of Zacharia and his men. The military has been pursuing Zacharia’s group since January, Cuerpo said, adding that a recent intelligence report warned that his group might be preparing for a new round of hostilities.

"We have evidence, that is why we launched the offensive," Cuerpo said.

Abu Zacharia succeeded Owaida Marohombsar (also known as Abu Dar), the leader of the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group who was killed in Lanao del Norte, a neighboring province, sometime in March 2019. Daulah Islamiyah means Islamic State in the local language.

Link

Southeast Asia

2 Suspected IS Militants Killed, 2 Caught in Southern Philippines Clash

2022-02-04

[BenarNews] Security forces have killed two Islamic State

...that branch of ISIS in the Philippines founded by two brothers of the Maute family who helped lead the siege of Marawi City in 2017 under Abu Sayyaf/ISIS-Philippines head Isnilon Hapilon. All three were killed there, but their followers carried on under the Maute name...

while on patrol Wednesday in Lumbac, a village in the town of Balabagan in Lanao del Sur province, the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom) said.

"Based on the reports from the ground, Marine troops were conducting focused military operations when they chanced upon the group of Polo Alim, a Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group member," said Lt. Gen. Alfredo Rosario Jr., the commander of WestMinCom.

"A firefight ensued after which [the] enemy withdrew, leaving behind the dead body of one of their slain comrades," he said, adding that Alim escaped but two others were caught.

The military identified the slain fighter as Saipoden Bangka Ayok and the two captured suspects as Datu Saida Abikan and Alimusa Ayon Bagol.

Alim is believed to be a commander of the DI-Maute Group, which in 2017 made up the majority of the Filipino Lions of Islam who took over the southern city of Marawi during a five-month siege.

Maj. Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Joint Task Force Central and 6th Division, confirmed that another DI-MG member was killed during the clash.

"The fleeing enemies brought along with them the remains of the other slain comrade," Uy said in a statement.

Four marines were maimed and brought to a hospital for treatment, he said. They are believed to be in a stable condition, he added.

Police operatives and marines who conducted a clearing operation said they recovered assorted weapons left behind by the turbans, including high-powered rifles and a grenade launcher. They also seized "war materials" from a shallow bunker where the button men were believed to have holed up, the military said.

Meanwhile,
...back at the buffalo wallow, Standing Buffalo drew a bead on his old enemy and squeezed the trigger...
military intelligence officials earlier told BenarNews that a few IS Lions of Islam who had beat feet from troops in Marawi in 2017 were in the process of rebuilding their ranks.

However,
denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
recent military victories in the field have disrupted their command structure, with the overall leader of Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan’s group under assault farther south on Jolo Island, officials added.

Sawadjaan himself may have been killed in a clash in 2020, but the military could not confirm his death because no body was found. Philippine officials accuse him of orchestrating a suicide kaboom of a Catholic church in Jolo in 2019 that left 23 dead, including an Indonesian couple who were the bombers.

The following year, his nephew, Mundi Sawadjaan, criminal masterminded another bombing on Jolo that left 14 dead.

Link

Southeast Asia

Philippine Military, Police Capture 9 Suspected IS Militants

2021-05-30

[BenarNews] Nine suspected Filipino forces of Evil belonging to the local Islamic State

Link

Southeast Asia

Soldiers Wounded as Philippine Govt Forces Overrun Militant Lair in South

2021-03-05

[BenarNews] At least five government soldiers were maimed during an intense firefight with a band of Islamic State

...founded by brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute in 2013 as a proto-Islamic State for their relations and their friends and their relations’ friends. Like Osama bin Laden, they came from a wealthy and politically connected family, and like him they fell in love with the Wahhabi outlook during or following a fancy education abroad. After falling out with Commander Bravo of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2014, they built a coalition of pro-Islamic State groups that transcended clan, including Isnilon Hapilon’s faction of Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic State cell from the town of Cotabato; and Ansharul Khalifa Philippines (AKP) based in Sultan Kudarat. In 2016 they swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, calling themselves Daulah Islamiyah-Ranao, and in 2017 they conquered Marawi City, which brought immediate and thorough Philippine army attention...

in the hinterlands of Lanao del Sur province on Wednesday, military officials said.

"Five soldiers sustained minor injuries during the firefight and have been given medical attention," battalion commander Lt. Col. Franco Rafael Alano said.

Government security officials said there were no immediate reports of casualties on the enemy side, a local Death Eater group that had helped lead hundreds of pro-Islamic State (IS) fighters from the Philippines and other countries in a siege on the southern city of Marawi in 2017. Hundreds of fighters on both sides, as well as non-combatants were killed in a five-month battle then.

Alano said Wednesday’s firefight occurred in a remote village in the mountains outside the town of Madalum, where the enemy side dug in for five hours before escaping.

Troops recovered a home-made bomb, bomb-making materials, assorted ammunition, food rations and personal items, he said.

Baby paraphernalia was also recovered, indicating that an infant and its mother were in the company of the Death Eaters, Alano said.

"It was clear evidence of the terrorists’ disregard for the safety of their family members," he said.

The Death Eater group, he said, had been trying to build up its forces ever since their defeat in Marawi nearly four years ago. Those involved in the firefight in Lanao del Sur this week were part of its recruitment team, he added.

The clash took place a day after a suspected Dawlah Islamiyah member surrendered amid a military offensive against the group in the province, authorities said.

Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan Jr., chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, identified the member as Amirudin Dimakuta, 40, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency.

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Southeast Asia

Three suspected Abu Sayyaf bombers killed before suicide mission

2019-11-06

[Inquirer] Three suspected Abu Sayyaf suicide bombers were killed in a clash with Philippine security forces in Indanan, Sulu on Tuesday afternoon. The suspects were about to carry out a suicide bombing mission, when they were flagged down by soldiers at a checkpoint at Barangay Kan Islam in Indanan town, military spokesman Cirilito Sobejana said in a statement.

The three suspects fired at the soldiers and a firefight lasted for five minutes. Two of the suspects were Egyptians — identified only as Abduramil and Abdurahman. The Egyptians were believed to be a father and son. One was Filipino, Sobejana said.

Sobejana said they are trying to confirm information that the two suspects were related to the female suicide bomber who attacked a military outpost, also in Sulu, in September.

In a security briefing also on Tuesday, AFP deputy chief of staff for intelligence Maj. Gen. Reuben Basiao said they had identified seven foreign terrorists in Mindanao, while 60 others remain on their watchlist.

“Foreign terrorist fighters are consistently monitored in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Sulu, planning to conduct suicide bombings as well as to provide funds and training,” he said.

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