[Inquirer] In the wake of Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte's orders for a brutal campaign to end the drug menace, communist guerrillas on Thursday said an attack it launched against Governor Generoso town in Davao Oriental province was an anti-drug operation. The Maoist guerrillas took captive the town's police chief during the attack.
New People's Army spokesman Rigoberto F. Sanchez said the raid was conducted after the NPA received repeated reports that the coastal town had become a major entry point for illegal drugs in the region and that the trafficking was being protected by authorities.
Sanchez said, "The NPA targeted the municipal police station based on the people’s popular demand to punish the protectors of rampant drug trafficking in the area."
The guerrillas also seized 11 firearms from the police armory.
Sanchez said the NPA took action because local officials had done nothing to stop drug trafficking in the province.
The NPA statement said Davao Oriental Gov. Cora Malanyaon and Rep. Nelson Dayanghirang are aware of the problem. It said, "Their silence and inaction on this only confirm the masses’ belief in the officials’ unholy alliance with drug syndicates."
Sanchez said the NPA had planned to raid a "shabu" laboratory in Governor Generoso but the military intervened. He said guerrillas who took captive the town police chief, Arnold Olgachen, found shabu in the police chief's possession.
Sanchez said Olgachen was being treated as a "prisoner of war." He said "medical officers of the Red army have assured his (Olgachen’s) good health."
He warned against attempts to rescue Olgachen, saying this would endanger the police officer's life.
Duterte has urged the militants to free Olgachen. On Tuesday, he said, "May I ask them, now, if they are listening, release the chief of police. If he has not done anything wrong, release him immediately."
Duterte said he was willing to pick up Olgachen in rebel territory.
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[Manila Times] Police have captured two Abu Sayyaf militants after a motorcycle chase that ended in a red light district before dawn on Thursday.
Regional police spokesman Rogelio Alabata said Alhnur Usup and Jamal Labuan were cornered in Zamboanga City. He said the two are followers of Abu Sayyaf leader Indang Susukan in Sulu province.
Usup is wanted in connection with numerous murder cases. However, officials did not confirm if Usup and Labuan - both from villages in Zamboanga – were planning to kidnap or launch terrorist attacks in the city.
Alabata said policemen were to serve arrest warrants against the pair, but they managed to escape on a motorcycle, forcing lawmen to chase them. They were cornered in Zamboanga City's red light district.
The arrest came as Philippine security forces were augmented in the region as the Abu Sayyaf resumed its attacks after the military seized Susukan's camp in a remote village in Maimbung town, Sulu recently. Susukan is a brother of Sulu-based Abu Sayyaf leader Mujiv Susukan, linked to the beheading of Malaysian hostage Bernard Then in November 2015 after his family failed to pay the ransom.
Earlier, a Philippine soldier was killed and his companion was injured during an attack in the town of Patikul, Sulu. The militants also lobbed a grenade at a military truck transporting troops in Jolo town and wounded seven rangers who just arrived by boat in Jolo from Zamboanga City and were heading to their camp when the attack occurred near the port.
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[BenarNews] Four militants and a Thai paramilitary soldier died Wednesday in a shootout in the mountains of Narathiwat province, a day after two paramilitary soldiers died in a roadside attack elsewhere in southern Thailand. The four rebels who were killed in the gun battle in Ban Aigis mountains were suspected of having taken part in the seizure by rebels of a local hospital.
The killings over a two day period brought to 44 the number of people who have died since February 10 in a surge of violence linked to southern Thailand's long-running separatist insurgency.
Wednesday's firefight broke out as the Narathiwat Task Force was hunting down suspected rebels. The paramilitary soldier who was killed was identified as Anusak Amrod, and two of the dead militants were identified as Lugman Latehbuering and Bueraheng Arwaema. Lugman and Bueraheng were wanted for their suspected roles in the seizure of a hospital in Cho-irong district on March 13.
Three or four other rebels were wounded, but managed to escape.
On Tuesday night, two paramilitary soldiers died after being hit by a roadside bomb and then shot in Narathawit's Ra-ngae district. Military officials found a motorbike along the road, and later found the bodies of paramilitaries Sirawut Nuanwong and Chakpong Chaipat, whose weapons had been taken.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.