Land mine wounds 5 soldiers in Surigao

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Five Scout Rangers were wounded when their jeep ran over a land mine planted by communist rebels in Surigao del Sur last Wednesday, a military official said.

New People’s Army (NPA) rebels set off the blast on a road in a remote village in Marihatag town where a guerrilla unit lay in ambush, said Maj. Gen. Samuel Bagasin, the Army’s Northern Mindanao chief.

Five Scout Rangers — 2Lt. Domingo Saavedra, Sgt. Nenito Tuazon, Cpl. Orlando Alpon, and Pfcs. Felipe Abon Jr. and Rodrigo Tacon — were taken to the hospital after a brief firefight, he added. There were no reports of rebel casualties.

"All the victims are in safe condition now after the quick medical evacuation provided by our Air Force helicopters," Bagasin said.

Earlier, government troops confiscated two truckloads of explosives described as "C-4 commercial type," high-powered firearms and ammunition in an NPA camp it overran in Barangay Mahaba, Marihatag town.

The military believes the seizure foiled what could be a large-scale terror plot by communist rebels.

Bagasin said soldiers also overran another NPA materiel storage site somewhere at the boundaries of Agusan, Misamis Occidental and Bukidnon, and a "war manufacturing camp" in Davao.

"We believe the NPA is preparing for a bigger war," Bagasin said.

Maj. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, chief of the Armed Forces Special Operation Command, said the 2nd Scout Ranger Battalion has been deployed in Northern Mindanao to reinforce counter-insurgency forces there.

Residents of five villages in the seaside town of San Agustin, Surigao del Sur have fled their homes for fear of being caught in the crossfire as military operations against the rebels continue.

The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging an armed Maoist campaign since 1969. — With Edith Regalado, Ben Serrano and AFP