Top BIFF Leader Kumander Bungos Killed in Maguindanao del Norte Raid Ahead of Bangsamoro Vote

Quick Answer

Esmael Abubakar was shot dead at 1:10 a.m. on July 5 as police and soldiers served arrest warrants at his hideout in Sitio Tambak, Barangay Calsada, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte.

How the raid unfolded

Joint operatives from the Police Regional Office in the Bangsamoro region, the PNP Special Action Force, and the Army's 601st Brigade surrounded the hideout after confirming intelligence on his location. They carried five arrest warrants.

According to authorities, Abubakar was alone and fired a pistol at the approaching team instead of surrendering. He was wounded, rushed to a hospital, and later declared dead. A .45 caliber pistol was recovered at the scene.

Others found at the location were taken to the Sultan Kudarat municipal police station for questioning. The military said the operation ended within the early hours without any reported losses among the government forces.

The pre-dawn timing, authorities said, was meant to limit the risk to nearby residents and to reach the target before he could slip into the surrounding countryside.

Who Kumander Bungos was

Abubakar chaired the BIFF-Bungos faction and had once served as vice chairman for political affairs under Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters founder Ameril Umbra Kato. He formed his own faction after a leadership split following Kato's death in 2015.

His group later pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and aligned itself with the local Dawlah Islamiyah network. He topped the most wanted lists in the Bangsamoro region and in Maguindanao del Sur.

That standing made him a long sought target. Security forces had tracked his movements across central Mindanao for years before the intelligence that led them to the Sultan Kudarat hideout.

Under Kato, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters had broken away from the larger Moro rebel movement that later signed the peace deal, rejecting the settlement and continuing to fight. The Bungos faction carried that hard line forward after the split.

What charges he faced

The warrants covered a string of serious cases, including murder and multiple frustrated murder. They also listed qualified direct assault with multiple attempted murder, attempted murder, and destructive arson.

Those cases had kept him among the priority targets of units operating in the area, reflecting years of attacks attributed to his group.

Prosecutors had built the cases over several incidents, and the outstanding warrants were the legal basis for the operation that ended in the gunfight.

Taken together, the charges placed him among the most heavily accused figures still at large in the region before the raid.

Attacks linked to his group

The military and police tied his faction to a coordinated attack on February 28, 2019, in Cotabato City and parts of Maguindanao del Sur that killed three soldiers of the Army's 57th Infantry Battalion and wounded two civilians.

Authorities also linked the group to an ambush of police personnel in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao del Sur, on March 28. The faction has been blamed for sporadic violence across the province in recent years.

Such attacks have made the group one of the more persistent armed threats in the area, even as its numbers thinned under sustained military pressure.

Investigators had also been piecing together the faction's role in smaller clashes and in extortion complaints raised by residents along its turf.

Timing before the elections

Major General Jose Vladimir Cagara, commander of the 6th Infantry Division, described the killing as a significant blow to the faction, particularly with the Bangsamoro parliamentary elections approaching in September.

Security officials expect the loss of its leader to disrupt the group's operations and help keep order in the run-up to the vote.

The region is preparing for its first parliamentary election, and keeping armed factions in check has become part of the security planning around the polls.

Local leaders welcomed the operation but cautioned that the faction could regroup under a new commander, and urged continued watchfulness in the towns where it has operated. They asked residents to report any sign of the group rebuilding so security forces could respond before the September vote.