Joint police and military operatives killed a suspected member of a terrorist cell sympathetic to the international terror group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in a shootout in Ormoc City Thursday.
A report reaching Camp Crame in Quezon City identified the slain suspect as Joseph Anulga Jr., alias “Dawud,” a resident of Sitio Lawis, Barangay Airport, Ormoc.
Police and military intelligence agents managed to arrange the purchase of a .45 pistol from Anulga for P12,000. The meeting was arranged at 8 a.m.
Anulga reportedly noticed that boodle money was given to him and he was dealing with a police poseur-buyer , prompting him to open fire. Backup soldiers and policemen immediately traded shots with Anulga. He died on the spot.
Based on the background check, Anulga was an Islam convert who has been recruiting in Ormoc. Reportedly, he was selling the gun to raise money to join the terror group in Mindanao.
Anulga was a direct associate of the late Yusuf Macuto. Macuto was involved in a foiled plot to bomb the US Embassy last November 2016 and the main suspect in the Hilongos, Leyte bombing last December 2016.
Macuto killed during the Marawi siege. (Aaron B. Recuenco and Francis T. Wakefield)
