Three suspected bombers in a blast at a Davao City night market last September were arrested by military and police elements in Cotabato City last Tuesday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Friday.

Lorenzana said the suspects, identified as TJ Tagadaya Macabalang, Wendel Apostol Facturan, and Musali Mustapha, belong to the extremist Maute Brothers group.

“The said three terrorists have direct participation in the September 2 Davao city bombing…The operation recovered solid pieces of evidences showing that they are indeed the terrorists who bombed Davao City market,” Lorenzana said.

He said the suspects were arrested by forces from the Army’s Intelligence Security Group, backed by policemen after attempting to evade a checkpoint while they were on a motorcycle with no license plate in the vicinity of Cotabato City.

The suspects were presented by officials led by Lorenzana, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, AFP Chief of Staff General Ricardo Visaya, PNP Director General Ronald Dela Rosa, and Lieutenant General Eduardo Ano, commanding general of the Philippine Army.

The national police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group charged before the justice department the three suspects for illegal and unlawful possession, manufacture, dealing in, acquisition or disposition of firearms, ammunition or explosives.

During the press conference, Lorenzana presented videos and photos of recovered evidence from suspects, including materials for improvised explosive devices, a sub-machine gun, a cal. 45 pistol, a motorcycle, and cell phones used to document the explosion.

He noted the discovery of explosive materials from the suspect only proved their possible plan to conduct bombing activity “somewhere else”.

He said Macabalang detonated the improvised bomb, Facturan placed the explosive and Mustapha took a video of the incident using his cellular phone for documentation. .

The phone used by Mustapha contains a video of the explosion where people could be heard pleading for help as the bomb exploded.

It also has a short video of Facturan with a flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and a photo showing a bomb manual.

“There are indications that the Maute Group is trying to align themselves with the ISIS as seen in the recovered video. We have also established their link with the ASG as they revealed their intention to disrupt the government’s massive military operations in Sulu,” said Ano.

Lorenzana said the attack was conducted in retaliation for heavy casualties suffered by the group in Butig, Lanao del Sur.

Eight Maute Group members were captured in the operations in August 22 but they escaped from prison on August 27.

Lorenzana mentioned that the arrested suspects were part of a newly-established cell of the Maute Group in Cotabato City. He said the police and military are “conducting follow-up operations” to destroy this cell.

Lorenzana said the Maute Group’s plan to bomb Davao City was conceived more or less two weeks before the incident.

“Accordingly, the plan was conceptualized to disrupt and divert the government’s massive military operations in Sulu that started in July 2016 and in Central Mindanao that started in August 2016,” he said.

Ano said authorities are conducting operations to capture around 10 bombing suspects, who include some women.

Lorenzana said civilian informants will be awarded for information leading to the arrest of the suspects. The local government of Davao City offered a total of two million pesos bounty for the information that will led for the arrest of the suspects on the bombing incident. Robina Asido/DMS