ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / June 21, 2008) – Four policemen were wounded, one of them seriously, in a grenade attack in the southern Philippines, officials said Saturday.
Officials said the attack occurred late Friday at a police station near a bus depot in the town of Kabasalan in Zamboanga Sibugay province, about 120 kilometers from Zamboanga City.
One of the injured policemen was transferred to hospital in Zamboanga City because of serious shrapnel wounds.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the area is a known stronghold of Muslim and communist separatist rebel groups, blamed by police and military in previous attacks in the province.
“The attack targeted the police station and we still do not know who was behind it, but government troops are in the town are in heightened alert and assisting police forces in security operation,” Army Major Eugene Batara, a regional military spokesman, told the Mindanao Examiner.
It was unknown whether the attack was connected to the June 14 killing of Akiddin Abdusalam, a rogue leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, in Kabasalan town.
Philippine Army Major General Nehemias Pajarito said Abdusalam was killed June 14 in a clash with police and government soldiers near a wharf in Kabasalan town. He said two of Abdusalam's aides managed to escape, but one was wounded in the fighting.
But Abdusalam’s relatives claimed military intelligence agents met with the rebel leader at a house where he was later shot and killed.
Abdusalam, also known as Commander Kiddie, was tagged as behind the kidnappings of three Italian missionaries in Mindanao and also linked to last month's bombing outside a Philippine Air Force base in Zamboanga that killed three people and wounded more than a dozen others. (Mindanao Examiner)
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