Twenty-three reported dead as RP communists, security forces clash

Local military spokesman Major Michele Anayron said 11 members of the communist New People's Army (NPA) were killed in a counter-attack. About 100 NPA troops initially overwhelmed the logging company's private security force, then set fire to equipment, according to Fajura.

A combined army and police force, guided by company security guards, mounted a counter-attack but the rebels set off a series of roadside bombs that hit the convoy, Fajura and Anayron said.

“Two military vehicles were hit” by improvised explosive devices, said Anayron, spokesman for the Philippine Army's 4th Infantry Division, whose forces were targeted in the ambush. Anayron said only one body of the 11 communist rebels killed was recovered and the surviving guerrillas were believed to have carried away their dead comrades. There was no available independent confirmation of the 10 other reported rebel fatalities, and the communists had yet to make a statement on the incident. Another 10 soldiers, a police officer and the logging company's security chief were wounded in the clashes, according to Fajura and Anayron.

The NPA has been waging an insurgency across the Philippines for the past 40 years. It is believed to have about 5,000 militants, and is well known to raise money through extortion.

No reason was given for Wednesday's attack on the logging company but the communists often attack such sites as punishment for not giving in to extortion demands and to gain weapons from the targets' security details.

The military said in September that the communist insurgency had claimed more than 3,000 lives over the past eight years.

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