4 soldiers killed in NPA clash

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Four soldiers and two communist rebels were killed and three others were wounded in an encounter in a remote village in Besao, Mt. Province last Friday, the military said.

But the Leonardo Pacsi Command of the New People’s Army (NPA) claimed that a total of five soldiers were killed in the firefight that ensued after they waylaid a 70-man composite force of the Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion’s Bravo Company and the 50th Special Rifle Company of the 5th Infantry Division in Barangay Dandanac.

The wounded soldiers were airlifted from Besao to a military camp for treatment, said Lt. Col. Leopoldo Galon Jr., 5th ID spokesman. — Artemio Dumlao