Troops pursuing rebels who attacked Napocor towers

COTABATO CITY – Police and troops are hunting down two groups of suspected terrorists that bombed two electric transmission towers in separate locations in the Lanao provinces.

The whole of Mindanao could be plunged in darkness if more transmission towers are blasted down, according to Superintendent Danilo Bacas, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police spokesman.

The two towers of the National Power Corp. supply electricity to the adjoining Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte provinces and parts of the Zamboanga Peninsula.

While tower 22 in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte was felled by explosives, the two steel foundations of tower 26 in Ditsaan Ramain, Lanao del Sur were bombed.

Bacas said ARMM police director Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao has deployed more policemen to strategic areas in Lanao del Sur where all hydroelectric plants supplying power to almost the whole of Mindanao are located.

Lt. Gen. Cardozo  Luna, Armed Forces Eastern Mindanao Command chief based in Davao City, has ordered the Army’s 4th Infantry Division to run after the bombers.

Bacas said improvised explosives fashioned from live mortar projectiles were used in the attacks.

Army and police bomb experts deactivated an explosive strapped to one of the towers in Ditsaan Ramain that failed to explode, he added.

In Koronadal City, a police-Army team arrested on Thursday afternoon an alleged member of the Al-Khobar extortion gang in Buluan, Maguindanao province.

Tony Nur, 37, who is wanted for murder, was arrested by Tacurong City and Buluan policemen and military intelligence agents.

Superintendent Joel Limson, Tacurong police chief, said Nur did not resist arrest after sensing that military agents and policemen had already cordoned off his hideout in Buluan’s poblacion.

Nur is detained at the Kidapawan City police station, he added. 

Police and troops swooped down on Nur’s lair based on two warrants of arrest issued by Judge Rogelio Naresma of the Kidapawan City Regional Trial Court Branch 23 and Judge Vicente Mondragon of 1st Municipal Trial Circuit Court of Makilala town.

Al-Khobar, a newly formed terrorist group comprised of disgruntled Moro rebels and terrorists linked to the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group, had been tagged by the police and military as responsible for the series of bomb attacks and extortion activities in central Mindanao.

Most of the victims of Al-Khobar are bus companies and wealthy traders in the region.  – John Unson, Ramil Bajo