Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Southeast Asia

Eight communist guerrilla leaders surrender to Philippine authorities

2023-01-16

[BenarNews] Philippine authorities on Friday said that eight senior communist guerrilla leaders had surrendered recently to the military’s eastern Mindanao Command, weeks after the death of rebellion founder Jose Maria Sison.

Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. did not say when the "ranking leaders" of the New People’s Army (NPA) surrendered, only that they gave up because life in the guerrilla camps in the hinterlands had become difficult. The NPA is the guerrilla wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

"They are commanding officers [of the NPA] and they have a long involvement with the movement," Abalos told news hounds. "What drove them to surrender is that they have seen an opening, a chance to trust the government. To the others, give up because the government is here to help."

Authorities identified the rebel leaders as Noel Sinanday, Nickboy Sinanday, Rady Kinoyog, Jilmar Dahinlay, Jertolui Hilario, Roselyn Omandam, Maricel Colawing and Jenelyn Palta. They were said to be operating in the mountains of Bukidnon in Mindanao.

As a goodwill gesture, the eight led the military to three arms caches hidden in villages in the town of Talakag, a rebel stronghold, authorities said.

In addition, more than a dozen NPA rebels surrendered in Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Zamboanga del Sur provinces, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency.

The NPA has been waging one of the world’s longest-running Maoist rebellions since 1969. It peaked in the 1980s, when the number of armed rebels was believed to be about 20,000. Today, slightly more than 2,000 are scattered across the Philippines, according to authorities.

The surrenders came weeks after CPP founder Sison, 83, died on Dec. 16 from natural causes in the Netherlands, where he went into self-exile.

"The loss of their highest leader has critically affected the morale of the [rebels]. Without Sison’s direction and leadership, the CPP-NPA will suffer," said Eastern Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. Greg Almerol said.

"That is why their remnants are yielding, even as 2023 has just started, because they know the disaster [that they are facing]. With this situation, we expect more of their comrades to surface and lay down their arms."

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Southeast Asia

Philippine military blames IS-linked group for deadly bus bombing in south

2022-11-08

[BenarNews] The Philippine military on Monday blamed the Filipino unit of the Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Philippine Military: Lieutenant in Local Islamic State Faction Surrenders

2021-06-04

[BenarNews] A senior suspected member of the Islamic State

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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

Philippine Military Kills 7 Suspected Dawlah Islamiyah Militants in 2 Southern Raids

2020-11-23

13 November
[BenarNews] Six Filipinos believed to be members of a local 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....
branch were killed Friday in a gunbattle with government forces in the southern Philippines, while a seventh suspected bad boy died in another raid in the region, military officials said.

Arafat Bulacon (alias Maula) a top lieutenant of Dawlah Islamiyah — the Filipino term for Islamic State (IS) — was among the six suspects slain during the raid in Polomolok, a town in South Cotabato province, authorities said.

He was among those wanted for a 2018 kaboom in General Santos city that injured eight people, they said. Earlier this month, troops killed a bad boy identified as Bulacon’s accomplice, Jazzer Nilong, in the nearby town of Esperanza.

"Two arrest warrants for murder (were) issued against the suspect at 5 in the morning," said Maj. Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the military’s Joint Task Force Central. "However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well...
Bulacon and five other cohorts tried to evade the arrest and engaged the troops in a shootout, which resulted in their instantaneous death."

He said troops recovered an M4 rifle, two 12-gauge shotguns, two .38-caliber revolvers, an AR-15 pistol, an improvised bomb and an IS flag.

Security Forces Kill Islamic State Suspect, Foil Bomb Plot
5 November
[BenarNews] Police and soldiers killed a suspected sub-leader of Islamic State’s Philippine branch and foiled a bomb plot during a joint counter-terrorist operation in southern Sultan Kudarat province, the military said Thursday.

Combined forces from the provincial police, the army’s 7th Infantry Battalion and 43rd Special Action Company moved in to arrest the suspect, Jazzer Nilong (alias Khalid Di Nilong), at an inn in the municipality of Esperanza on Wednesday, according to the military chief in the south.

"But he sensed the presence of troops conducting surveillance, dug in and engaged the officers in a gunbattle," Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, head of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, told BenarNews. "He was killed in the brief firefight."

Nilong’s death came a day after Philippine government forces killed seven suspected members of a pro-Islamic State (IS) bad boy group, 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...
, in a high-seas shootout off the far southern Sulu Islands.

Nilong led a cell of the bad boy group Dawlah Islamiyah, which carried out a bombing in southern General Santos City that maimed eight in 2018, officials said.

Dawlah Islamiyah, which translates to Islamic State (IS), operates in the southern Philippines. Its members are known to work with forces of Evil belonging to the Ansar al-Khilafah Philippines (AKP), another bad boy group whose members are wanted for a string of attacks in the south.

After Wednesday’s gunbattle, police recovered an automatic handgun, a 60-mm unused mortar round, a rifle grenade, electric blasting caps, batteries and materials typically used by southern Philippine forces of Evil to make improvised bombs. Investigators also found documents indicating that Nilong was planning to carry out attacks in the south, Vinluan said.

The dead man’s brothers — Jeoffrey and Amen Nilong, who were identified as bomb makers — were killed in a military and police raid in the southern town of Isulan in September, he said.

SEA CLASH
On Tuesday, government forces killed seven Abu Sayyaf Group forces of Evil when a firefight broke out as they chased the suspects’ speedboat in waters off the Sulu archipelago, the military said.

The slain suspects included Mannul Sawadjaan (alias Abu Amara), believed to be the successor to his grandfather, Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, the overall IS leader in the country who, authorities have said, may have been killed in a previous encounter with troops.

The military has not officially confirmed the death of Hatib Sawadjaan, who took the reins of IS after Isnilon Hapilon was killed at the end of a five-month siege of the southern Marawi city by pro-IS forces of Evil in 2017.

On Thursday, armed forces chief Gen. Gilbert Gapay expressed confidence that the forces of Evil would soon be defeated.

"The efficient use of our assets brings about significant gains in our fight against enemies of the state," Gapay said. "This proves that armed with high level weaponry and equipment, our skilled soldiers can render these ~~bandidos~~ Death Eaters defenseless."

He said that since November 2019, 65 Abu Sayyaf members had been killed while 99 others had surrendered.

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Southeast Asia

Philippines: Security Forces Kill Islamic State Suspect, Foil Bomb Plot

2020-11-07

5. November
[BenarNews] Police and soldiers killed a suspected sub-leader of Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Militants begin handing over guns under Philippines peace deal

2019-09-09

[DAWN] Moslem snuffies in the mainly Catholic Philippines began handing over their guns to independent foreign monitors on Saturday, as part of a treaty aimed at ending a decades-long insurgency.

Just over a thousand snuffies in the country’s restive south were turning in 940 weapons in a single day, the start of a graduated decommissioning process that aims to turn the country’s largest rebel force into a regular political party.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters who were demobilised on Saturday represent a symbolic first step towards retiring what MILF says is a force of 40,000 in the coming years.

"The war is over... I have no firearms left," Paisal Abdullah Bagundang, 56, a self-described veteran of more than 100 shootouts with government security forces since the 1970s, said.

But the disarmament will take time to make an impact in a place where violence is an almost-daily threat.

A bomb hidden in a parked cycle of violence went kaboom! near a market in Isulan town early on Saturday, just hours before President Rodrigo Duterte was to witness the decommissioning ceremony some 40 kilometres away in Sultan Kudarat.

Police said eight people were maimed in the attack that was later claimed by the holy warrior Islamic State

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Southeast Asia

Blast wounds seven people at public market in southern Philippines

2019-09-07

MANILA (Reuters) - An explosion at a public market in the southern Philippines wounded at least seven people early on Saturday, the fourth blast in that area in 13 months, the military said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but a militant group operating in the mostly Christian city of Isulan in the province of Sultan Kudarat was among the suspects, military said.

The latest blast comes at a time of heightened tensions in the volatile southern Philippines after three incidents in the past year authorities said were suicide bombings by militants linked to the Islamic State.

Video footage showed Saturday’s blast occurred in a parking space for motorcycles. A suspected improvised explosive device was placed beside a parked motorcycle, Major Arvin Encinas, a regional military spokesman, told reporters.

In April, a bombing by suspected members of a pro-Islamic State militant group injured at least 18 people in a restaurant in Sultan Kudarat in Mindanao region.

Mindanao is troubled by banditry and armed rebellions that keep large parts of the region mired in poverty and instability.

Islamist militants operate in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation country and some are known to have links with groups abroad, including al Qaeda and Islamic State.

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Southeast Asia

Two Abus, one NPA nabbed in separate operations

2019-07-22

[Journal Online ]Three elusive militants, one of them a most wanted New People’s Army rebel and the two others members of the Abu Sayyaf Group were hauled to jail by agents of the Philippine National Police Intelligence Group (PNP-IG) in separate manhunt operations

In a report, the arrested suspects were identified as wanted Abu Sayyaf rebels Gappal Saripada, alias ‘Badigoy/Gong,' and Amil Hamja Hamsain; and Cheryl Mama Tolino, alias ‘Ka Che,’ a known NPA organizer in Central Mindanao.

Saripad, also known as Gappal Bannah/Maidan/Boy Negro’ was nabbed in Tungawan, Zamboanga Sibugay last Saturday. The suspect was the subject of a warrant of arrest for multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder issued on September 4, 2018. The suspect was described as a brother of Hashim Saripada, alias ‘Ibnu Kashir Saripada,' and said that both are Abu Sayyaf bomb makers wanted for their role in a 2018 bombing in Lamitan, Basilan which killed at least ten people near a military detachment in the area. The bombing was said to have been ordered by Abu Sayyaf leader Furuji Indama.

The official said that the suspects are also wanted for their involvement in the 2005 Valentine’s Day bombing in different cities which killed at least nine innocent victims.

The second suspect identified as Hamsain, was arrested in Zamboanga City last July 4 while in possession of two fragmentation grenades.

Tolino was arrested in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat on a warrant of arrest for murder and nine counts of frustrated murder.

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Southeast Asia

Two teens claiming IS ties surrender to Cotabato mayor

2018-12-24

[PhilStar] Two teens claiming to be Islamic State terrorists who had balked at bombing targets in central Mindanao during the holidays surrendered to Cotabato City mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi on Sunday. She presented the pair to reporters in the presence of top police and military officials. The two are still minors, their parents said.

The two initially claimed links with the Dawlah Islamiyah, also known as the Maute terror group based in Lanao del Sur, and the Ansa’r Kilafah Philippines, or AKP, operating in Sarangani province and in General Santos City. Both groups are using the black IS flag as banner.

Officials told reporters the parents of the two alleged terrorists decided to turn them over to the city government out of fear of the mayor's iron-fisted policy in maintaining law and order. The teens were said to have undergone training in the fabrication of improvised explosive devices in the seaside Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat province.

Personnel of the 1st Marine Brigade killed seven terrorists in Barangay Butril in Palimbang in 2015 in a raid that led to the fall of an AKP camp there where IEDs, firearms and a black IS flag were recovered.

Army intelligence sources said the pair also confessed to links with the now detained TJ Macabalang, one of the alleged plotters of the September 2, 2016 IED attack in Davao City that left 17 people dead and hurt more than 60 others. Macabalang and two accomplices, Wendel Apostol Facturan and Musali Mustapha, were arrested in Cotabato City more than a month later.

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Southeast Asia

Tight security as charges filed against BIFF leaders

2018-09-25

[PhilStar] More security personnel have been deployed in parts of central Mindanao after charges were filed against two Islamic militants implicated in recent bomb attacks.

Police spokesman Graciano Mijares said police in Maguindanao have also asked village leaders to help stop attacks by sympathizers. He said, "We are not taking chances. Our personnel on the ground have also been maximizing their anti-terror intelligence gathering initiatives."

Police have filed multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder charges against more than a dozen Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters for the fatal August 28 and September 2 bombings in Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat. Among those named in the complaint are Esmael Abdulmalik, most known as Abu Toraife, and bomb-maker Salahuddin Hassan.

Abu Toraife is leader of one of three factions in the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Hassan, meanwhile, was trained in making improvised explosive devices by slain Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, better known as Marwan. The two were last spotted holding out in Shariff Saidona town in Maguindanao.

Other than Abu Toraife's faction, the BIFF also has two other factions, one led by Imam Karialan and the other by Imam Bongos.

Local government units in central Mindanao have stepped up efforts against the BIFF, prompted by the bombings in Isulan, in General Santos City and in Midsayap town in North Cotabato in the past three weeks. The IED attack in Barangay Apopong, General Santos City on September 16 hurt eight people, one of them a three-year-old child.

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Southeast Asia

Two killed in second Mindanao bombing

2018-09-04

[Latin American Herald Tribune] The number of people killed in a bomb attack in the southern Philippine city of Isulan increased to two on Monday while 14 others were injured. The attack, which occurred on Sunday night, was the second in less than a week after a similar incident five days earlier killed three people and injured around 30.

An 18 year old died in the explosion while another succumbed to his wounds at a hospital in Isulan, capital of Sultan Kudarat province, where four of those injured were in critical condition.

An improvised explosive device went off between an internet cafe and department stores in the center of Isulan. The blast occurred in the same area that another bomb went off on August 28, killing three people and wounding 36 during harvest festival celebrations.

No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack, however authorities suspect the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, an Islamic State affiliated group.

National Police Chief Oscar Albayalde condemned the attack and said the number of security patrols has been increased in the Muslim-majority region of Mindanao which has suffered four attacks in a month. He also announced the resignation of the provincial director of the national police in Sultan Kudarat and the police chief of Isulan for their ineffectiveness in preventing the attacks.

On August 31, a group of unidentified armed men kidnapped the head of a civilian armed movement and his wife in the town of Sirawi in Bangsamoro, where they also murdered six people.

On July 31, a van explosion killed ten people on Basilan island. The Army blamed the Abu Sayyaf.

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