By Allen V. Estabillo / Philippines News Agency
GENERAL SANTOS CITY—Government security forces killed the leader of a notorious armed group that had pledged support to the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Daesh) and arrested three of its members in an operation early Thursday in Kiamba, Sarangani.
Senior Supt. Leonardo Suan, Police Regional Office-12’s deputy regional director for operations, said 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-Khalifah 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 told reporters.
He identified the arrested suspects as Matahata Dialawe Arboleda; Ismael Sahak, alias Mael; and Morhaban Veloso, alias Bugoy.
Recovered from the suspects were two M-16A2 carbines and a hand grenade.
Suan said the operation was launched after a tip off from an informant, who reported the group’s presence at the resort.
He said the operation involved personnel from the Central Mindanao police command headquarters, the Regional Public Safety Battalion, Sarangani police’s intelligence branch and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency.
Arnulfo Flores, the resort’s owner, said the Maguid’s group arrived in the area late Wednesday night aboard a red Toyota Wigo 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 policemen during the chase and was eventually gunned down.
Maguid, who bolted from the Sarangani provincial jail in 2010, is facing at least 15 warrants of arrest 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 Branches 11 and 38 of the Regional Trial Court in Alabel, Sarangani.
Authorities tagged Maguid’s group as behind the planting of an improvised explosive last December at a Christmas display in front of the Kiamba town hall.
The policemen seized suspected bombmaking materials at his house in Barangay Daliao in Maasim town in October last year.
Last August Special Action Force troopers killed three alleged members of the Ansar Al-Khalifah, which had pledged support to the Daesh, in an operation in upper Sitio Lebe in Barangay Daliao.
Recovered at the site were various high-powered firearms and a black flag bearing Daesh emblem.