Cops arrest shabu couriers seemingly linked to Dawlah Islamiya

COTABATO CITY — Three motorcycle-riding narcotics couriers, two of them suspected of having links with the Dawlah Islamiya, were intercepted by policemen on Tuesday night in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte.

Adrian Quiambao, Juhair Salgan and Norhamin Mangarin, who had confessed of being peddlers of shabu in the presence of local officials and reporters, are now locked in a detention facility of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station. They will be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the P83,000 worth shabu confiscated from them as evidence.

Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Wednesday that the three suspects were flagged down by a police team led by Lt. Col. Esmael Madin at a stretch of a highway in the town proper of Datu Odin Sinsuat, while on their way somewhere to deliver their merchandise.

Madin, chief of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police, said their prompt interception of Quiambao, Salgan and Mangarin was premised on reports by tipsters about their supposed delivery of shabu to contacts whose identities investigators are now trying to validate.

“It’s good that personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat MPS had immediately acted on those reports, enabling them to arrest the three men," Nobleza said.

Personnel of intelligence units under the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the 603rd Infantry Brigade told reporters that they want Salgan and Mangarin investigated for their possible relationship with members of the Dawlah Islamiya in Sultan Kudarat province who have the same surnames.

Quiambao is from Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat. Salgan hails from Barangay Namat in Palimbang while Mangarin is a resident of Barangay Nalilidan in Kalamansig. 

Units of the 603rd Infantry Brigade and local executives had secured the surrender via backchannel negotiations of 68 Dawlah Islamiya members in Palimbang, Kalamansig and nearby towns in the past 10 months.

Soldiers killed on July 6, 2023 in an encounter in Sitio Malabong in Barangay Lumitan in Palimbang a ranking leader of the Dawlah Islamiya, Zaideen Nilong, who had two henchmen