Mayor Akmad Ampatuan of Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao del Sur reportedly escaped unscathed from an ambush Sunday morning, but two of his bodyguards were wounded.
Three of the suspected ambushers were killed during a hot pursuit operation by a joint police-Army team.
“The mayor is safe,” Anwar Kuit Emblawa, the mayor’s executive assistant, told reporters in a text message.
He said Ampatuan was in his bulletproof black sports utility van when attacked around 6:30 a.m. in Barangay Poblacion, Shariff Aguak.
His backup vehicle, a pickup, was also peppered with bullets.
Emblawa said the two security escorts sustained non-life-threatening injuries and are being treated at Bangsamoro Regional and Medical Center in Datu Hoffer.
The suspects were on board a white minivan when they carried out the ambush. Police found high-powered firearms in the suspects’ vehicle.
Residents have identified the slain ambushers as Budtong Alim, Malid Pendatun and Oting Madid.
One of the villagers was a woman who wept and spoke repeatedly to one of the dead men, saying in the vernacular: “Datu Tong, I told you so, not to do this.”
She rushed past the police line to a grey minivan used by the suspects.
Authorities said the woman remained unnamed and protected for her safety, as her testimony would be crucial to police investigation and eventual prosecution of a case that may lead to a yet unknown mastermind of the slay attempt, a local official said.
Another key to the investigation is the missing driver of the suspects’ minivan. The unidentified driver was believed to have escaped amid the running gun battle between the pursuing police-military posse and the suspects along the national highway.
The ambush was the fourth assassination attempt against the mayor, the first being in 2010 when he was then a municipal councilor.
