7 soldiers wounded in NPA attacks Davao region

TAGUM CITY, Philippines – Communist rebels attacked government troops in Southern Mindanao on Monday, wounding at least seven soldiers, police and military officials said Tuesday.

Using improvised bombs and firearms, New People’s Army guerrillas attacked troops of the Army’s 46th and 25th Infantry Battalions in Laak town, Compostela Valley, past 7 p.m. Monday, according to Senior Superintendent Abraham Rojas, Compostela Valley police chief.

Rojas said two soldiers from the 46th IB were wounded when they were waylaid by suspected NPA insurgents in Mabuhay village, while a unit of the 25th IB was hit by an improvised bomb in Ampawid village that wounded five soldiers.

The wounded were brought to Compostela Valley provincial hospital in Laak for treatment, but one of them was later transferred to Davao Regional Hospital in this city.

Early in the day, a makeshift roadside bomb went off in Barangay (village) La Filipina in Tagum City as a truck of the 46th IB transporting construction materials and soldiers passed by, spraying shrapnel that damaged the vehicle’s windshield, said Capt. Ernest Carolina, public information officer of the army’s 10th Infantry Division.

No one was hurt in the Tagum explosion, Carolina said.

“All police stations of the 11 municipalities and police detachments were alerted for diversionary (attacks) of the perpetrators,” Rojas said of the Laak incidents.

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