[2] Five days before the initial incident, the Armed Forces of the Philippines had detected the departure of a group of Abu Sayyaf from Indanan, Sulu bound for the Central Visayas.

A day before the first firefight, the AFP received reports of the presence of eleven armed men in three pump boats entering the Inabanga River in Bohol.

[3] A firefight between a joint Philippine Army and police force and the Abu Sayyaf began at approximately 5:00 in the morning of April 11, 2017, in Barangay Napo in the town of Inabanga.

[7] Askali was implicated in the beheading of two Canadian hostages, John Ridsdel and Robert Hall in 2016, and German tourist Jürgen Kantner in February 2017.

[6] On April 13, two days after the clash, another Abu Sayyaf fatality was recovered by security forces after being buried by his companions in Barangay Lonoy Cainsican in Inabanga.