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HIDEOUT Members of the separatist Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) at their hideout in the remote village of Datu Unsay in Maguindanao province. Some 1,000 BIFF men are reportedly ready to join the Bangsamoro government. —JEOFFREYMAITEM
DAVAO CITY – More than a thousand pro-Islamic State (IS) militants have decided to meet with their comrades in Bangsamoro, convinced of the progress that the regional autonomous government led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had been making in the Patria Moro, said the head of the former rebel group.
Murad Ebrahim, chief minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), told the Inquirer by phone on Saturday that the MILF had been contacting his comrades in the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), some thousand of whom agreed. to return to his fold and join the government of Bangsamoro.
The BIFF split from the MILF when the latter signed a peace accord with the government in 2014 and formed the core of the expanded self-government of Bangsamoro. “We are still open to negotiation. The BIFF is divided into three splinter groups, but now there are 1,000 ready to return, ”he said.
Ebrahim said the attack on Friday organized by a BIFF faction in the city of Maguindanao in Datu Piang, where a police car and part of a police detachment caught fire, would not affect those who chose to join the BARMM.
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Murad, 71, said the Bangsamoro government had been forming a joint peace and security body made up of the police, the army and the MILF to respond to security threats in the region.
He said the group was also reaching out to the Abu Sayyaf Group, which is responsible for the deadly suicide bombings in Sulu, but no longer has strong central leadership.
Both Abu Sayyaf and the BIFF remain a threat, Murad said, but “we are also trying to reach out to them, convincing them [to return to the government while] reinforcing our security measures on the ground. “
In November, BARMM leaders passed a resolution urging the central government to extend its mandate for three years and postpone the regional parliament elections set in 2022.
Ebrahim said more time was needed to implement reforms that were held back by the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the peace agreement, a designated interim government, the Bangsamoro Transitional Authority, will administer the BARMM for three years until its first batch of officials is elected in 2022. INQ
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