Police intelligence operatives have arrested over the weekend a local “recruiter” for the Islamic State (IS) in what was seen as a major setback for the international terrorist group to beef up its ranks with “imports” from outside of Mindanao.
Kevin B. Madrinan, who goes by the aliases Ibrahim Abdullah Madrinan and Ibrahim Khalil Al-Garaba was arrested at around 4:50 p.m. along Atherton corner Burbank Streets, North Fairview, Quezon City, according to Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Camilo Pancratius Cascolan.
Madrinan, a Balik-Islam convert, is the recruiter for Luzon of the Daulah Islamiya (DI), the local front of the IS, which figured in the occupation of Marawi City in 2017. The DI is a name given for collective members and groups who have pledged, or allied themselves with the IS.
“Madrinan is a Balik-Islam convert who is the contact person and liaison in Luzon of Daulah Islamiya members coming from Maguindanao under Esmael Abdulmalik aka Abu Turaife and Salahuddin Hasan aka Abu Salman, and those coming from Sulu under Mundi Sawadjaan,” Cascolan said.
Abdulmalik and Hasan led two factions that broke away with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and allied themselves with the IS. There are other groups or factions, including with the Abu Sayyaf Group that have also toed the line of the IS.
Sawadjaan is tagged as one of the brains behind the recent twin suicide bombings in Jolo, Sulu, that killed more than a dozen people, eight of them soldiers and more than 70 people wounded, most of them civilians.
Cascolan said that Madrinan, who yielded a .45 caliber pistol and fragmentation grenade during his arrest, became DI’s Luzon recruiter after the arrest of Datu Omar Palte, alias Allan Palty in Quezon City on January 1, 2020.
“Madrinan is also responsible for the recruitment of Balik-Islam converts and facilitating their travel to Mindanao for training and jihad exposure,” Cascolan said during a news briefing on Monday.
“Madrinan has links with Yusuf Macoto of Cavite and Muhammad Paras of Bulacan but he was left behind in Luzon when Macoto and Paras joined Daulah Islamiya forces in the siege of Marawi City in 2017 where they both died,” he added.
Meanwhile, Cascolan directed the Drugs Enforcement Group to coordinate with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Corrections regarding the alleged continued operation of illegal-drugs activities by a convicted drug lord even while inside the Bilibid Prisons.
The PNP chief made the order following a drug buy-bust operation in Cebu City on Sunday that resulted in the arrest of three suspects with 7 kilos of shabu worth P47.6 million.
He said that one of the arrested couriers claimed that the seized drugs which came from San Carlos City Negros Oriental belonged to Rustico “Dikoy” Ygot, a convicted drug lord now serving sentence at the National Penitentiary after he was convicted of drug charges in 2013.
Early this year, the PNP served a freeze order issued by the Anti-Money Laundering Council on two properties of Ygot in Cebu.