1 Dead, 7 Wounded in Philippine Bomb Attacks

A police officer has been killed and seven other government forces wounded in two bomb attacks blamed on Muslim militants in the southern Philippines, the military said Tuesday.

Suspected members of the separatist Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) planted a roadside bomb that hit a military truck Monday, wounding two soldiers in the town of Maguindanao, the military said.

A day earlier, a police officer was killed and five of his colleagues were wounded when their vehicle rolled over an improvised bomb in the nearby town of Shariff Aguak.

The attacks appear to be retaliation for a large-scale offensive that left at least 26 members of the BIFF dead last week, as the military stepped up attacks against militant groups that might absorb Islamic State-linked gunmen who escaped a five-month siege in the southern city of Marawi.

Local army spokesman Capt. Arvin John Encinas said the two soldiers who were wounded were part of a security patrol team that had just carried out a security sweep in Maguindanao.

The policeman meanwhile was killed and his colleagues wounded when their vehicle rolled over an improvised bomb on New Year’s Eve.

Senior Supt. Agustin Tello, Maguindanao police director, said Senior Police Officer Max Kaibat died while undergoing medical operation at the local hospital, while five of his companions sustained injuries.

“The attack was perpetrated by IS-linked militants. There’s an ongoing manhunt against them,” Tello said.

He was referring to the BIFF, a faction that broke off from Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s largest Muslim rebel organization, which signed a peace pact with Manila in 2014.

The BIFF has not openly declared allegiance to the IS, but has cheered on the local militants waving the black flag who took over Marawi in May.

It took troops until October to dislodge the militants from Marawi, a once prosperous Muslim city that the clashes turned into rubble.

About 1,200 people were killed in the largest security challenge to face the young presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. Of the total killed, almost 1,000 were militants.

Despite the victory, Duterte had asked Congress to extend martial law in the south for another year, saying that about 200 militants who had escaped the siege continued to pose a threat.

Also on Sunday, two suspects believed to be BIFF militants were killed when a bomb they were carrying prematurely exploded in the city of Tacurong, near Maguindanao.

Sixteen civilians sustained minor injuries in the explosion, said local police chief Senior Supt. Raul Supiter.

The BIFF, with hundreds of fighters, split from the 10,000-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2008.

The BIFF vowed to push on with the separatist fight, and attracted younger, more hardline members of the MILF, which dropped its independence bid in exchange for expanded autonomy in the south.

But the autonomy law has yet to hurdle congress, composed mostly of politicians who had earlier expressed fears of granting the former rebels autonomy.

In 2015, congressmen held up passage of the autonomy law after 44 police commandos were killed by MILF guerrillas when government forces entered a rebel-held zone in Maguindanao province during an operation to target Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.