SECURITY forces fired mortars at rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front shielding Ampatuan town Mayor Rasul Sangki, who fled while his followers battled police trying to serve a search warrant for his home in Barangay Saniag Thursday.
Regional police director Reuben Sindac said fighting erupted after Sangki’s followers fired at a combined police and military contingent serving the search warrant.
Sangki was one of the five Maguindanao mayors whom President Rodrigo Duterte claimed was involved in narcotics trafficking last August.
Sangki surrendered to authorities but was later released for lack of evidence.
“The MILF has given us the go signal to continue the hunt against the followers of Sangki who sought refuge inside MILF areas manned by rogue MILF members,” Sindac said.
Sindac said the authority surfaced after the government and the MILF along with the International Monitoring Team reached a consensus.
But reports said that the MILF refused to abide the government’s call for them to peacefully surrender Sangki, who is believed to be holed up in an MILF camp.
“We are pounding an enemy stronghold where armed followers of Sangki are holed up,” Sindac said.
More troops have been sent into the battle zone.
Sindac also said that several checkpoints were set up.
So far, 12 soldiers from the 601st Infantry Battalion have been wounded in the two days of fighting.
President Duterte on Friday admitted that he cannot anymore control the spread of local terrorist groups allied with the Islamic State as he threatened to call off the ongoing peace talks with Moro rebel groups should they provide refuge to them in their territories.
“I am pleading that I still want peace. I am ready to talk with you, but not with the ISIS,” Duterte told the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front.
“But the ISIS contamination, I can no longer control it. So what I can do now is to talk with you, MI[LF] and the MN[LF],” he added.
“I was shown the map where the encounters were. I am earnestly asking, I am pleading to the MN[LF] and the MI[LF] that do not provide sanctuary to these terrorists in your areas. Because if that happens, then we will be forced to go after them within your territory.”
“Do not allow the Maute to seek refuge in your camps, otherwise I will be forced to tell the AFP and the police to enter your territories,” he added.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Thursday said they are looking into the transfer to Central Mindanao of Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon at the behest of the ISIS people in the Middle East. Lorenzana said Hapilon left Basilan for Lanao del Sur in December 2016.
Earlier reports said Hapilon had been the rising “figure head” of a handful of ISIS followers from different groups such as the Abu Sayyaf based in Basilan and Sulu, the Maute Group based in Butig, Lanao del Sur; the BIFF based in Central Mindanao, Ansar al-Khilafa Philippines and rogue MNLF and MILF groups.
Just recently, security officials said those homegrown terrorist groups had been uniting and evolving into just one group called Dawlatul Islamiyah Waliyatul Masrik or DIWM, and had chosen Hapilon as their sole leader in their aggressive efforts to be recognized by the ISIS.
Lorenzana said the ISIS had prodded Hapilon “to find out if Central Mindanao is conducive to the establishment of an organization [provincial caliphate].”
Duterte said allowing terrorists to their camps could prod the government to cancel the peace talks.
In the same speech, Duterte admitted that the previous administration’s Oplan Exodus in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where 44 elite police commandos were killed was a ‘serious flaw’ on the part of the government.
The previous administration stormed into an MILF territory without proper coordination with the rebel group to arrest Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.
