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John Unson - Philstar.com
April 23, 2026 | 7:34pm
Police forensic experts sift through the scene of the deadly gunfight early Thursday in Barangay Sinunuc in Zamboanga City.
Philstar.com / John Unson
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Three villagers were killed and three others were wounded in a supposedly non-violent police law-enforcement operation before dawn Thursday, April 21, in Barangay Sinunuc in Zamboanga City that reportedly turned haywire.
Radio reports in Central Mindanao on Thursday morning stated that policemen and military intelligence operatives were to serve the long-wanted Saddam Siddik warrants for his arrest in Barangay Sinunuc, but he allegedly resisted and pulled out an M16 assault rifle and opened fire, provoking a gunfight that left three villagers dead.
Barangay officials in Sinunuc and investigators from the Zamboanga City Police Station 8 had separately said that the three fatalities, Jerry Indan Alfad, 52, Rayyan Hassan Alfad, 22, and the 12-year-old Salam Aradais Alfad, 12, were trapped in the crossfire between Siddik and the policemen and military personnel tasked to arrest him.
The incident left three others, Mislie, 18, Sayra, 40, and the 23-year-old Saralyn, also surnamed Alfad, badly wounded, now confined to a hospital.
Siddik, the target of the joint police-military operation, had reportedly escaped, now subject of an extensive hunt by policemen and soldiers.
Siddik is wanted for murder cases pending in two courts in Basilan. The two separate warrants for his arrest were signed by the Regional Trial Court judges Grace Pilla and Leo Principe in Basilan, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro region.
The policemen and soldiers involved in the operation recovered an M16 and an M61 fragmentation grenade at the scene of the encounter, according to radio reports.
