MANILA: Two soldiers were killed in a firefight with communist guerrillas in the northern Philippines while in a separate clash police backed by helicopters stormed a rebel base near a mountain resort, officials said yesterday.
Up to 30 New People’s Army (NPA) gunmen fought a two-day gunbattle with police forces near the resort town of Sagada, said Chief Superintendent Benjamin Magalong, the regional police chief.
“We used two ground-assault aircraft to neutralise snipers and improvised explosive devices at their camp,” he said in a telephone interview.
Sagada, which boasts caves, mountainside rice terraces and pine forests, is a town in the Cordillera mountain range that is popular with Western backpackers and local tourists escaping the tropical heat.
Magalong said civilians were in no danger during the fighting that ended Friday.
However, two police special forces members were shot and wounded by rebel snipers on Thursday, leading to the decision to call in air support, Magalong said.
Elsewhere in the Cordillera, two soldiers were killed and three wounded in a separate firefight on the outskirts of Tabuk city on Thursday, an army statement said.
Cordillera police chief Magalong said the NPA camp that was overrun was a two-hectare (five-acre) training base hidden in a forest near the village of Aguid, at least four hours’ hike from Sagada town centre.
All its defenders escaped, leaving behind guns, ammunition, improvised explosive devices, and documents, he added.
Sagada hotelier Karen Fiar-od said residents learned about the fighting only from television and news websites. “It’s far from here, and it had no immediate effect on the local tourism situation,” she said, adding local hotels had few guests anyway since it is the middle of the monsoon season in the area.
AFP
