NPA admits to attacking troops in North Cotabato

From the Manila Times (Jan 28): NPA admits to attacking troops in North Cotabato

Communist rebels claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against government forces in North Cotabato City. Rigoberto Sanchez, a spokesman for the New People’s Army (NPA), said that rebel forces sustained its campaign against the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command. He said that rebels recently bombed a military convoy of the 57th Infantry Battalion in the village of Kisante in North Cotabato’s Makilala town, wounding five soldiers.

“The NPA’s ambush in Makilala was aimed at deterring troops who were on their way to its tactical command post in Alang-alang detachment where the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] mounted two batteries of 105 howitzer that conducted shelling operations toward the village of Cabilao,” Sanchez said in a statement sent to The Manila Times.

He said that the Maoist rebels used a command-detonated explosive in the ambush directed against the infantry battalion, which is protecting the Energy Development Co., or the Philippine National Oil Co., in Kidapawan City and the Dole Philippines banana plantation in North Cotabato.

He said that another attack killed four government troops and wounded over a dozen soldiers belonging to the 28th Infantry Battalion in Lupon town. There was no immediate statement from the Eastern Mindanao Command.

The rebels, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been waging war for decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country.

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/regions/40307-npa-admits-to-attacking-troops-in-north-cotabato