A deadly shootout involving fighters from a splinter rebel group and its storming of a village in a separate incident over the weekend rattled an autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines ahead of this week’s start of Ramadan.
Soldiers from the Philippine Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team clashed with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters on Saturday in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, a town in Maguindanao del Sur province, killing two suspected BIFF members, said Brig. Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, the army commander in the area.
Maguindanao del Sur is one of the provinces in the so-called Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which came into being in 2019 and is home to a fragile peace between Manila and former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) separatist guerrillas, who administer the region. The BIFF broke away from the MILF after the latter agreed to a peace deal with Manila 10 years ago.