The Philippine military on Saturday reported that a junior army officer and four suspected members of the communist New PeopleÂ’s Army (NPA) including two women were killed in separate encounters with government forces in Mindanao.The military said that a lieutenant of the elite Army Special Forces was killed while two of his men were injured in the battle that occurred on Friday in the town of San Agustin, Surigao del Norte.
Meanwhile, Captain Albert Caber, a military spokesman, said the two other clashes occurred in the town of Maco, Compostela Valley in which three of the militants, two of them women, were killed. He said, “Residents reported two of the three rebels killed were women,” adding the soldiers later found their bodies concealed in a forested area of the village.
During pursuit operations on Friday, government forces killed another militant in an encounter in a separate village in Maco. Found beside the slain rebel was a hand grenade, ammunition for an M16 rifle and printed subversive materials.