Elements of the Army’s 702nd Infantry Brigade clashed with a large New People’s Army (NPA) guerrilla force in Nueva Ecija early yesterday, leaving a rebel dead and two soldiers wounded, the military said.
Helicopter gunships were scrambled to support the soldiers locked in combat with between 80 and 100 NPA guerrillas at the boundary of Palayan City and the towns of Pantabangan and Carranglan, said Col. Jovenal Narcise, commander of the 702nd IB.
The rebels later retreated with government troops in pursuit.
Narcise said the military was attempting to establish if the rebels were the ones involved in the burning of a cargo truck of Diapitan Resources Development Corp. in nearby Aurora province last Friday.
He said the rebels could be planning to attack the Casecnan hydroelectric dam project in Pantabangan.
The two wounded soldiers were identified as Corporals Tony Caballero and Jose Julius Curameng.
"We expect to find more bodies of rebels as well as abandoned firearms as the operations continue in the forested areas," Narcise said.
The continuing pursuit, he said, uncovered what appeared to be an NPA camp near the site of the initial hostilities.
The 9,000-strong NPA has stepped up attacks against power plants and telecommunications facilities this year after the United States government put the Maoist organization on its blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations.
Unknown gunmen assassinated an Italian consultant of a hydroelectric power plant of the state-run National Power Corp. in Laguna last Monday.
Meanwhile, an NPA guerrilla was killed when the Army raided a rebel camp in the jungle near Mahayag town in Zamboanga del Sur last Monday, Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya, chief of the military’s Southern Command, said.
Security forces in Mindanao also raided a village near Kapatagan town in Lanao del Norte the other day and detained two NPA rebels, said Col. Ernesto Boac, Army brigade commander.
President Arroyo suspended peace talks with the communists last year after they assassinated two legislators. The NPA has been waging a 33-year, rural-based insurgency. – Benjie Villa, Ding Cervantes, Ric Sapnu, Paolo Romero, James Mananghaya and Charlie Lagasca