NICKEE BUTLANGAN / AFP
(Eagle News) – Five people, including three army soldiers, were killed while nine persons were injured after two suicide bombers entered the Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team headquarters in Indanan, Sulu, a police report said.
The incident happened in Sitio Tanjung, Bgy Kajatian, Indanan, Sulu past 12 noon on Friday, June 28, where the two suicide bombers also died.
The army soldiers who were killed were identified as Pfc Dominique C. Inte, Pfc Recarte D. Alban Jr., and Cpl Richard P. Macabadbad.
The identities of the two suicide bombers who died during the attack were not yet known as of posting time.
The two alleged suicide bombers barged into the military camp and blew themselves up around noon Friday, according to the Sulu Police Provincial office.
The attack also injured nine soldiers in the attack.
The nine injured soldiers were identified as SSg Marlon B Domingo, SSg Ferdinand V Clemente, Sgt Jykyl A Bautista, Sgt Richard B Tudla, Sgt Mark Joseph M Mamingcol, Sgt William E Andreade, PFC John Angelo S Carpio, PFC Dariel C Bolivar, and PFC Ralph R Sabroso.
After the attack, all units under the Joint Task Force Sulu were immediately placed on red alert. They were ordered “to enact preemptive measures.”
Troops from the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion and 6th Mechanized Battalion also reinforced the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
In Jolo, the capital of Sulu, checkpoints were immediately set up, as well as a roving patrol.
“We’re not discounting the possibility that it’s the handiwork of Abu Sayyaf Group,” regional military spokesman Major Arvin Arcinas told reporters after the attack on the special counter-terrorism unit’s temporary headquarters.
The Philippines has renewed its campaign against the militants on Jolo this year after at least one suspected suicide bomber attacked the island’s Roman Catholic cathedral in January, killing 21 people.
Friday’s blast blew the roof off the sentry gate of the military camp and blackened its concrete walls, according to photographs of the aftermath of the attack on local television.
“This attack is meant to disrupt the intensified security operations and our operational tempo following series of recent operational gains in the area,” army spokesman Colonel Ramon Zagala said in a separate statement.
(Ely Dumaboc, Eagle News Service correspondent in Sulu, with a report from Agence France Presse)
