Lanao del Sur mayor unscathed, 3 companions injured in ambush

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines —  Three companions of a municipal mayor, one of them a policeman, were wounded in an ambush in Buadipuso-Buntong town on Sunday.

Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr. of Masiu, Lanao del Sur survived the attack unscathed.

Col. Madzgani Mukaram, director of the Lanao del Sur provincial police, said gunmen positioned at one side of the road in Barangay Gata in Buadipuso Buntong opened fire at Pangandaman’s convoy and scampered away immediately.

Pangandaman’s three companions, Police Staff Sgt. Jabbar Romato Pangandaman, Jamal Gabriel Pangandaman and Casanoding Mangandog sustained bullet wounds in the attack.

Mukaram said the mayor and his escorts were en route to the town proper of Masiu from Marawi City when gunmen shot their vehicles with assault rifles along a stretch of the Marawi-Masiu Highway in Barangay Gata.

Personnel of the provincial police’s Mobile Force Company and soldiers of the Army’s 82nd Infantry Battalion are still out searching for the ambushers, who were reportedly overheard arguing with each other in Maranaw dialect over having missed their target as they fled the scene.