Army foils NPA bomb attack on gas station

ZAMBOANGA CITY - Explosives experts defused the other day a homemade time bomb communist guerrillas planted near a gasoline station in a Zamboanga del Norte town, the military said yesterday.

As this developed, the New People's Army ambushed Army soldiers in Mabitac, Laguna yesterday, killing one and wounding two others.

Brig. Gen. Narciso Abaya, chief of the Army's First Infantry Division, said civilians reported the suspicious package hidden in a culvert fronting the gas station in the poblacion of Salug town, and reported it to the authorities.

Had the bomb exploded, it could have blown up the station and caused a firestorm in the crowded neighborhood and commercial district, Abaya said.

He said communist guerrillas being pursued by troops are believed to have placed the device, a 60-millimeter mortar shell rigged with a timing device.

"There is a possibility that they were targeting the gas station as a diversionary tactic. A blast would have started a firestorm," Abaya said.

Last week, communist guerrillas attacked an Army patrol base in Bukidnon, east of Zamboanga del Norte, killing two militiamen and ransacking the armory.

Meanwhile, the military said soldiers from the 9th Scout Ranger Company were aboard a jeep on their way to their camp when rebels fired on them in Mabitac, Laguna.

The attack came a day after rebels clashed with soldiers in nearby Quezon, leaving four guerrillas dead.

The latest fighting could derail plans by the rebels to release Chief Inspector Abelardo Martin, police chief of Dolores, Quezon, and Army intelligence officer Maj. Noel Buan who were captured last year.

The NPA, armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines, has been fighting a 31-year Maoist insurgency.