Joint government operatives killed a notorious leader of an armed group that had pledged support to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and arrested three of its members in an operation early Thursday in Kiamba town in Sarangani province.

Sr. Supt. Leonardo Suan, Police Regional Office-12’s deputy regional director for operations, said fugitive suspect Mohammad Jaafar Sabewang Maguid alias Tokboy was killed in an encounter at around 1 a.m. at the Angel Beach Resort in Barangay Kitagas, Kiamba.

Maguid is the founder and leader of the Ansar Al-Khilafah Philippines, which had been blamed over a string of terror attacks in Sarangani and the neighboring areas these past years.

“It’s confirmed. It was Tokboy,” Suan said in a radio interview.

He identified the arrested suspects as Matahata Dialawe Arboleda, Ismael Sahak alias Mael, and Morhaban Veloso alias Bugoy.

Recovered from the suspects were two baby or lite Armalite rifles and a hand grenade.

The police official said they launched the operation after an informant tipped them of the group’s presence at the resort.

He said the operation involved personnel from the PRO-12, Regional Public Safety Battalion, Sarangani police’s intelligence branch and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency.

Engr. Arnulfo Flores, the resort’s owner, said the Maguid’s group arrived in the area late Wednesday night aboard a red sedan with temporary license plate 12190176.

Citing accounts from resort personnel, he said operatives initially arrested Maguid’s three cohorts upon entering the area at past midnight.

He said Maguid reportedly tried to escape from the area but was cornered near the boundary of a neighboring beach property.

Witnesses said the suspect fired at the operatives during the chase and was eventually gunned down.

Maguid, who bolted from the Sarangani provincial jail in 2010, is facing at least 15 arrest warrants issued by various local courts since 2008.

He is facing multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, frustrated murder, robbery with violence, robbery with homicide, destructive arson and arson, filed at the Regional Trial Court Branches 11 and 38 in Alabel, Sarangani.

Authorities tagged Maguid’s group as behind the planting of an improvised explosive in December at a Christmas display in front of the Kiamba municipal hall.

Joint operatives seized suspected bomb-making materials at his house in Barangay Daliao in Maasim town in October last year.

In August, SAF operatives killed three alleged members of the Ansar Al-Khilafah, which had pledged support to the ISIS, in an operation in upper Sitio Lebe in Barangay Daliao.

Recovered at the site were various high-powered firearms and a black flag bearing an ISIS logo.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Philippine News Agency

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