SUSPECTED members of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) welcomed on Wednesday the visit of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. in Sulu by detonating a land mine that killed three soldiers, including two junior officers.
Six other soldiers were also wounded during explosion, according to newly installed spokesman and concurrent commander of the AFP Civil Relations Service, Brig. Gen. Joselito Kakilala.
The attack happened while Catapang was in the province to get developments on the ongoing military operations against the local terrorist group, which he had earlier ordered pursued.
The chief of staff later proceeded to Maguindanao to also get reports from commanders on the ground about the success of the “all-out offensive” that he had ordered against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
The soldiers, all members of the Army’s 32nd Infantry Battalion (32nd IB), were aboard three military vehicles and were on their way to Barangay Pansul, Patikul, at around 11:55 a.m., when their vehicle triggered a land mine. The public affairs office of the AFP identified the soldiers killed as 1st Lt. James Magbanua, Sgt. Niel Daez and 1st Lt. Emerson Somera. Magbanua was the commander of the Alpha Co. of the 32nd IB.
According to former military Spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla, elements of the 32nd IB were also securing a road construction projects at Barangay Pansul.
“It could have been the handiwork of the usual group, the ASG,” he said.
The military is currently conducting an operation against the ASG in Sulu following the orders of Catapang and Defense Secretary Voltaire T. Gazmin due to the spike of criminality, including kidnapping in the province that was attributed to the ASG.
Kakilala said the military has already killed a total of 36 ASG members and wounded 78 others in Sulu since January this year.
Meanwhile, Padilla also said the operation against the BIFF and even against the Justice for Islamic Movement (JIM) will continue amid the efforts to bring back the families affected by the conflict to their homes.
The JIM, which is headed by former acting BIFF chief Ali Tambako, is not different from the BIFF, and it was only founded by Tambako because he had been removed from the BIFF leadership, according to Kakilala.
“It is one and the same group. It was only a product of rivalry between Tambako and Kagi Karialan, the chief of staff of the BIFF,” he said.
Tambako, a Cairo-educated Muslim scholar, is a nephew of Ameril Umbra Kato, the founder of the BIFF.
Kakilala said all of the displaced families in Pikit, North Cotabato, have already returned to their homes, while 70 percent of the families who left their homes in Pagalungan, Maguindanao, have gone back to their residences.