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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent and Anthony
Vargas, Reporter
ZAMBOANGA CITY: At least five soldiers were
killed and six more wounded in fierce clashesWednesday with
communist insurgents in Mindanao, Army commanders said.
The fighting broke out near the village of
Campawan in the seaside town of Baganga in Davao Oriental province
where troops attacked a stronghold of the New People’s Army (NPA).
It was not immediately known how many insurgents were killed in the
fighting, but General Ernesto Boac, commander of the 10th Infantry
Division, said security forces were pursuing about 70 gunmen.
“Five of my soldiers were killed and there is
an ongoing operation in the area. We are pursuing NPA terrorists,”
Boac told The Manila Times.
He said villagers were also helping authorities
by providing information about the NPA, blamed for a string of
attacks on government and civilian targets in the province the past
years.
Col. Benito de Leon, a regional Army spokesman,
said at least six soldiers were wounded in the fighting and that
villagers have reported an undetermined number of enemy casualties.
“We are awaiting reports from our ground commanders in Baganga
town. Six soldiers were wounded in the fighting,” he said in a
separate interview.
Around 70 rebels figured in the said attack,
noted the spokesman for the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, Colonel
Benito de Leon, and said elements of the 67th Infantry Battalion (IB).
“We have five soldiers killed in action and
six others were also wounded in action. The enemy sustained
undetermined casualties,” de Leon told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo
in a phone-patched briefing.
The ambush came as General Esperon was visiting
troops in the Northern part of Mindanao as part of preparation in
intensifying the military’s campaign against communist
insurgents.
There was no immediate statement from the NPA
about the clashes or its casualties, but Philippine military chief
General Hermogenes Esperon previously ordered a heightened offensive
against the insurgents. The military chief said earlier that
successes in the field has resulted in the dismantling of 13
guerrilla rebel fronts and decreasing the number of rebels to some
5,700 regular fighters.
The Philippine government opened peace talks
with the insurgents, but negotiations collapsed in 2004 after the
United States on Manila’s prodding listed the Communist Party of
the Philippines and the NPA and its political arm, the National
Democratic Front, as foreign terrorist organizations.
Besides the communist in surgency, the military
is also fighting Muslim secessionist rebels and Abu Sayyaf
terrorists in the southern region.
On Wednesday, suspected Moro Islamic Liberation
Front rebels attacked a Philippine police patrol, wounding four, in
a farming village in Zamboanga del Norte, officials said. The
attacked occurred before dawn near a village called Lakiki in Sibuco
town, a known MILF stronghold.
Troops from the Army’s 44th Infantry Battalion
in a nearby village were sent to pursue the attackers, but the
gunmen reportedly broke into smaller groups and fled to the
hinterlands.
While no group claimed responsibility for the
attack, the local police blamed the MILF for the ambush.
-- Al Jacinto
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