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CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews / 19 Sep) – Seven Army soldiers were wounded when suspected New People’s Army rebels detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) during a firefight in Agusan del Sur last Tuesday.
Lt. Tere Ingente, spokesperson of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, said the soldiers belong to the 23rd Infantry Battalion who were engaged in a firefight with the rebels in Sitio Afga, Barangay Lower Olave, Buenavista town, Agusan del Norte.
“Our troops were maneuvering towards the rebels when they exploded an IED,” Ingente said.
He said the soldiers were immediately evacuated to Butuan City for medical treatment.
The incident came a day after Army soldiers killed an NPA rebel during a one-hour gunfight in another village in Buenavista town.
Ingente identified the dead rebel as a certain Rex Hangadorn, 23, a Manobo.
She said troops recovered from Hangadorn an M14 rifle, ammunition and four mobile phones.
Fighting between the government and the communist rebels intensified in the last few months.
In a statement released to the media two weeks ago, NPA spokesperson for North Central Mindanao Malem Mabini said their guerilla units meted the death penalty against five persons after their revolutionary courts found them “guilty” of spying and helping the military.
Mabini said those who were killed resisted the NPA units who came to arrest them. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)
