Police convoy ambushed in Lanao del Sur; no casualties

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines — Gunmen on Tuesday fired at a police convoy going to Cotabato City after authorities recovered stolen motorcycles in Balabagan town in Lanao de Sur.

 

Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, police director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said on Wednesday that no one was hurt in the ambush but that the lead car in the convoy was damaged.

 

The personnel of the Regional Highway Patrol Unit-ARMM were attacked while on a stretch of the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway on the boundary of Balabagan’s adjoining Barangays Diamaro and Macao.

 

Responding investigators from the Balabagan municipal police recovered spent shells of M-14 and M-16 assault rifles and .45 pistol on the side of the highway from where the gunmen launched the ambush.

 

Sindac said the incident was not in any way related to the ongoing strife in Marawi City, about 60 kilometers from the spot where the RPHU-ARMM convoy was ambushed.

 

He said the attack was more likely related to the unrelenting effort of the RPHU-ARMM to recover vehicles stolen from outside of the autonomous region that syndicates have brought into Lanao del Sur.

 

With the help of units under Sindac, the RPHU-ARMM has recovered dozens of vehicles in different towns in the autonomous region in the past 12 months.