4 soldiers hurt in grenade attack

COTABATO CITY — Four soldiers were injured in a grenade attack in Barangay Madia in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur late Saturday.

Local officials said the bombing was perpetrated by terrorists helplessly trying to project capability to sow terror still after 516 of their companions in Maguindanao del Sur and in nearby Central Mindanao provinces had surrendered in batches to different units of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region since 2020.

Municipal officials and barangay leaders in Datu Saudi Ampatuan said on Sunday that the bombing hurt four members of the 6th Mechanized Infantry Battalion, who were immediately rushed by their companions to a hospital for treatment.

The victims were in their roadside detachment in Barangay Madia in Datu Saudi Ampatuan when someone threw a fragmentation grenade at them and ran away.

Lt. Col. Roden R. Orbon, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the bombing was preceded by the surrender of 16 local terrorists in a symbolic rite in Barangay Buayan in nearby Datu Piang, Maguindanao del Sur on Friday.

Three of the 16 gunmen had told local officials and reporters then that their companions had tried to prevent their surrender. They also warned to carry out attacks to counter public perception that the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters had been decimated after hundreds of members had been reintegrated into society.

“Our constituents had relayed to us that there is really this desperate bid by the few remaining terrorists out there to overcome public awareness that these two groups are now so weak,” said a local official, who requested anonymity for security reasons. — John Felix M. Unson