COTABATO CITY, Philippines – An Army private was killed while two others were injured in another roadside bombing by renegade Moro rebels in Talayan, Maguindanao at past 8 a.m. yesterday.
The fatality, initially identified only as Pvt. Santos, of the 64th Infantry Battalion, died while being treated at the Camp Siongco Hospital of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said two other soldiers, Pvts. Mark Anthony Lazaro and Darwin Antonio, were injured in the explosion.
The slain private and his companions have just delivered supplies and other provisions to soldiers running after renegade members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Barangay Tamar in Talayan, Maguindanao and were on their way to their headquarters in a nearby town when a roadside bomb exploded just as their vehicle was passing by a narrow farm-to-market road connecting the barangay to the Cotabato-Maguindanao Highway.
The improvised explosive device used in the attack was fashioned from a live mortar round and a B-40 anti-tank rocket rigged with a battery-operated blasting mechanism.
The bombing came less than 24 hours after soldiers hoisted the Philippine flag at two guerilla strongholds, Camps Afgan and Bader, at the border of Talayan and Guindulungan, also in Maguindanao.
Army units under the 6th ID gained control of the two camps after two days of aerial, ground and artillery offensives. – John Unson