Soldier killed, companion hurt in Dawlah Islamiya attack

COTABATO CITY — Members of the Dawlah Islamiya on Saturday afternoon attacked a roadside Army detachment in Shariff Saydona Mustapha town in Maguindanao del Sur, leaving a soldier dead and causing panic among villagers in farming enclaves around.

Citing an initial report from the Shariff Saydona Municipal Police Station, the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region identified the fatality as Private 1st Class Rosendo Gannaban of the Alpha Company of the Army’s 99th Infantry Battalion, who died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

Gannaban, of Barangay Divisoria in Enrile town in Cagayan province in Luzon, and his companions were inside their fenced roadside detachment in Barangay Pagatin 1 in Shariff Saydona Mustapha when some 20 Dawlah Islamiya members armed with M14 and M16 assault rifles approached from two directions and opened fire, sparking a gunfight.

Local officials and Moro barangay leaders told reporters the group that perpetrated the attack is led by Ben Harris Salamat, most known in the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters as Nakan, who is long wanted for multiple murder, extortion, armed robbery and coddling of drug traffickers in exchange for money.

The Dawlah Islamiya and the BIFF have a reputation of fomenting hatred on non-Muslims and for bombing commercial establishments and buses if owners refuse to pay "protection money." 

Salamat and his men fled when the soldiers inside the detachment that they shot with assault rifles returned fire, wounding three of them, according to barangay officials and villagers.

A companion of the slain Gannaban, Private 1st Class Lexter Lizardo, was slightly wounded in the incident, according to officials of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division that has jurisdiction over Army units scattered in Maguindanao del Sur.