|
By Anthony Vargas, Reporter
Government troops have captured a
cave used by communist insurgents as a huge bomb-making depot in
Tagbina, Surigao del Sur, military officials said Thursday.
There were no immediate reports
of casualties on both sides though military officials described the
battle for the case as “intense.”
The cave in Sitio Greenfields,
Sta. Juana Village, is said to be also a meeting place for the local
New People’s Army command and the regional Communist Party
secretariat.
Soldiers stumbled on the case
weeks into a major hunt for Jorge Madlos, the highest-ranking
communist leader in that part of the country.
The military early this week
claimed Madlos had sent surrender feelers after troops imposed a
food blockade around the village.
The 401st Infantry Brigade
commander, Col. Jose Vizcarra, said two battalions had cordoned off
the village and imposed a 24-hour watch bolstered by K-9 units and
attack helicopters.
Explosives trove
The cave is “the biggest
bomb-making and ammunition factory and depot” of the NPA ever to
have fallen into government hands, according to a field report sent
to Army chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino.
The guerrilla headquarters is
just outside the town of Tabina but tucked under thick foliage.
The report said soldiers found
“42 plastic containers of superdyne dynamite explosives that could
produce about 250 pieces of eight-kilogram landmines [and] 18 pieces
of claymore mines.”
Rifles, a rocket propelled
grenade launcher, antitank weapon base plates, an ammunition
reloading machine and detonating wires were also seized, the army
said.
Some 100 containers of dynamite
explosives were also buried around the cave, the report added.
“The capture of this CT
[communist terrorists] factory will definitely degrade their [NPA]
bomb making capability in Mindanao,” Army spokesman, Major Ernesto
Torres Jr., said.
New charges
The 7,400 strong NPA is the armed
wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that
has been waging 38 years of protracted war against the government,
in one of Asia’s longest-running insurgencies.
Both groups are listed in the US
State Department’s “foreign terrorist organization” blacklist.
The military has embarked early
this month on a new battle-plan that aims to reduce the NPA’s
strength by half before President Arroyo’s term expires in 2010.
On Wednesday, one of Arroyo’s
most hawkish aides, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzalez,
said more witnesses have surfaced to testify against CPP founder
Jose Ma. Sison on the purging of alleged government spies in the
1980s.
“Important progress has been
made which could lead to the conviction of the top leadership of the
Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army,”
Gonzalez said in a statement distributed to reporters covering
Malacañang.
The government, Gonzalez said,
has applied for new arrest warrants against Sison and other ranking
communist leaders, including for allegedly ordering the
assassinations of former Rep. Rodolfo Aguinaldo of Cagayan, former
rebel commanders Arturo Tabara and Romulo Kintanar.
|
