BIFF spokesperson Abu Misry Mama (File photo/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) is offering help to an ongoing rift between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and several ranks supporting the Islamic state militant group (ISIS).
BIFF spokesperson Abu Misry Mama said they want MILF to allow them to negotiate between the two groups, as people in the community have been affected by their fighting.
“It’s not good, they are both Muslim organizations,” Mama told DavaoToday in a phone interview Wednesday, August 23.
Fishers in the communities in Datu Salibo, Maguindanao, for instance, cannot fish anymore as they are seen as targets by both sides. The fishermen usually go out before the crack of dawn, and they are often mistaken as fighters for using flashlights in the dark.
Tension reportedly rose on August 2 after a faction of the BIFF called Jamaah Mohajirin Wal Ansar (JMA) headed by Esmael Abdulmaguid or Abu Turaipe tried to raise their flag in a MILF bailwick in Datu Salibo in Maguindanao.
The JMA is a splinter group who broke away from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters faction headed by Esmael Abubakar alias Bongos.
The MILF believes the JMA faction who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State are coddling foreign terrorists who might have a hand in the Marawi crisis.
The Bongos faction, on the other hand, broke away from Kagi Karialan Animbang who replaced the BIFF founding chairman Ameril Umbra Kato who died in 2015. Kato once headed the MILF’s 105th Base Command.
A source privy to the side to the operations of the MILF also told Davao Today: “it is our mandate to quell these terrorist groups.”
Captain Arvin Encinas, chief of the Department of Public Affairs Office of the 6th Infantry Division could not give the exact figures yet on the casualties due to the clearing operations of the MILF, but gave an estimate of nine fighters on the side of the MILF have been killed.
“They can talk instead of fighting,” said Mama. (davaotoday.com)
