9 Philippine Soldiers, Cop Killed in Latest Rebel Attacks

ZAMBOANGA CITY, 21 November 2005 — At least nine army soldiers and one police officer were killed in two attacks by communist rebels in the central and northern Philippines, officials said yesterday.

Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said the soldiers were returning to camp by truck late on Saturday in Iloilo province in the central island of Panay when New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas exploded a land mine along the road in Calinog village.

Esperon said 18 soldiers were also wounded in the attack, which was followed by fierce fighting until the rebels retreated to the hills.

In Tiaong town of Quezon Province, 120 kilometers southeast of Manila, a policeman died instantly while three others were wounded in a 30-minute encounter with another band of NPA rebels along a road.

Chief Inspector Rancer Evasco, Tiaong police chief, said no casualty was reported on the side of the rebels but bloodstains were found by police investigators inside a van and cargo truck used by the rebels.

The rebels fired at the group of six policemen who were aboard an open mobile patrol vehicle.

The rebels fled on foot toward the towns of San Juan, Batangas ang Dolores, Quezon at the foot of Mt. Banahaw, said Evasco.

General Esperon said the latest field report claimed that at least 6 rebels were either killed or wounded in the fighting in the village of Calinog. “The attackers were not able to go near the trucks and soldiers repelled the insurgents and killed a still undetermined number of them,” he said.

The military yesterday decried the continued use of land mines by communist guerrillas, who have stepped up their attacks over the past months to protest their inclusion in the “terrorist” lists of the United States and the European Union. Officials also chided the rebels for continuing the use of land mines despite an international ban on anti-personnel explosives.

Army spokesman Maj. Bartolome Bacarro said the recent attack by communist guerrillas using land mines indicates a shift in their usual conduct of combat operations.

In a statement last month, the NPA said it has killed nearly 80 soldiers in about 100 encounters in the Bicol region of the main island of Luzon and in northern and eastern areas of southern Mindanao island.

Peace negotiations between the government and the rebel group have been suspended since August last year. (With input from Inquirer News Service & agencies)