Saturday, July 05, 2008

Security Forces Hunt Down Assassin Of Mindanao Politician

PAGADIAN CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 5, 2008) – Police and military mounted a manhunt against a man who killed the deputy mayor of the southern Philippine town of Pantar.

The gunman shot Abdul Rashid Unos while tending to his convenience store in Lanao del Norte’s Pantar town late Thursday afternoon.

“We have sent troops to ensure the peace and order in the town is not affected by the killing. We are helping the police maintain peace in the area,’ Army Brigadier General Hilario Atendido, commander of the military’s Task Force Lanao, told the Mindanao Examiner.

Senior Superintendent Lino Bagol, the provincial police chief, said they are still investigating the killing. “We are still investigating the killing, but security forces are hunting down the man who killed the politician,” he said in a separate interview.

Bagol said the victim’s family wanted the National Bureau of Investigation to help in solving the case. “We still do not know who was behind or the motive of the killing and we will help the NBI in the investigation of this case,” he said.

He said the politician was shot twice in the body with a .45-caliber pistol and died on the way to hospital. The still unidentified gunman escaped after the shooting.

It was not immediately known whether the murder was connected to politics, feud or clan war, but vendetta killings are not uncommon in Lanao del Norte. Political feud and clan war are the two biggest problems after Muslim insurgency in the province, home to about a million Malay-Arabic Maranaos. (Mindanao Examiner)

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