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Sunday, July 23, 2006
4 rebels die in clash in Sorsogon
* 7 renegades, 4 cops wounded
FOUR alleged members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels were killed and seven other insurgents and three policemen were wounded after the rebels attacked the Matnog town police station and a military detachment in Sorsogon on Saturday dawn.
Brigadier General Arsenio Arugay, commander of the Army’s 901st Brigade, said the undetermined number of fully-armed NPA guerillas, some of them armed with machineguns, swooped down on the installations around 4 a.m., ensuing a two-hour firefight.
Arugay said elements from the Army’s 2nd Infantry Battalion, government militiamen, and troops from 8th Infantry Division - who were waiting at a nearby pier on the way to their area of responsibility in Northern Samar – reinforced the brigade.
“Unfortunately for them there were some troops present in the town proper at the time of the attack. They suffered heavily on this tactical offensive,” said Arugay of the NPA.
He said the rebels positioned themselves near a church, which is about five meters from the police station. He said they also planted improvised explosives on a nearby bridge which were later recovered and disarmed by police bomb experts.
After the rebels withdrew, Arugay said government troops recovered from the scene of encounter three bodies of slain rebels. Three policemen were wounded as they defended their police station from the rebel attack, he said.
The rebels escaped on board a bus which they commandeered near the pier. Quoting the account of the bus driver, Arugay said the fleeing communists loaded in the bus a dead comrade and three seriously wounded rebels, “two of them probably also dead.”
The attack occurred a day after the assumption of Lieutenant General Hermogenes Esperon as Armed Forces chief vice General Generoso Senga. Esperon has vowed to defeat the NPA on the instructions of the President. Arugay said the rebels could be taunting the military leadership for the pronouncement.
“That might be the case but based on our experience in the campaign against the terrorists (NPAs), they could have planned this long before. Normally, the (rebel) preparations take three weeks or more than one month,” he said. (VR/Sunnex)
(July 23, 2006 issue)
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