NEWSBRIEFS

ILOILO

5 wounded in NPA ambush

Communist rebels on Monday ambushed two military trucks in Tubungan town, wounding at least three soldiers and two civilians.

The attack came three days before the 43rd founding anniversary of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The rebels, believed to be under the NPA’s Napoleon Tumagtang Command and the CPP’s Southern Front Committee, fled to hinterland villages after a gun battle in Barangay Ingay in Tubungan, 42 kilometers south of Iloilo City, said Maj. Enrico Gil Ileto, spokesperson of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Inquirer Visayas

SULTAN KUDARAT

Texter thwarts bombing attempt

An unidentified texter alerted police about an improvised explosive device he found inside the rest room of a gas station in Bagumbayan town on Sunday.

Acting on the information, bomb experts from the provincial police detonated the device believed to have been planted by extortionists, said Army Col. Prudencio Asto, regional spokesperson.

However, the gas station owner, Roger Tabat, said he had no known enemy and had not received any extortion demand.

A broken mobile phone and fragments of a rocket-propelled grenade were recovered from the detonation site. Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao