Victorious NPA offensives:
NPA launches simultaneous raid on 2 PAF camps in Batangas

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The NPA launched simultaneous attacks on January 10 on the Philippine Air Force (PAF) 740th Combat Support Group�s camp in Barangay Ruhatan, Balayan, Batangas and its detachment in Barangay Dacanlao, beside the NAPOCOR plant. The attacks were launched by a composite force composed of Red fighters from the Melito Glor Command (NPA-Southern Tagalog) and the Edgardo Dagle Command (NPA-Batangas).

The attack was a punitive action against the PAF unit, which is principally responsible for the all-out �counter-insurgency� campaign in western Batangas. With a long list of human rights violations, it likewise guards and protects the NAPOCOR�s 600 megawatt coal-fired thermal plant that is much despised and opposed by the people in the area.

Four PAF personnel were killed and six were wounded in the raid on the two camps. Another sergeant was killed when the NPA ambushed the two groups of reinforcements that came all the way from Nasugbu and Tuy. Three Red fighters sacrificed their lives.

The AFP can no longer deny the NPA�s strong presence and mass base in Batangas. No less than the AFP�s chief propagandist Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero has said that the NPA could not have launched these military actions if it did not have a mass base. He reasoned out that AFP forces are far too dispersed, enabling the NPA to attack areas where the AFP forces are spread thin.

Lucero merely spewed lies to cover up for the NPA�s victorious tactical operation. He made it appear that the attackers� objective was to blow up the NAPOCOR plant. In fact, this was merely used as a ruse to deceive the AFP forces in the two camps, which were the real targets of the tactical offensive.

The NPA guerrillas showed that despite the very large concentration of AFP and PNP forces in Southern Tagalog, particularly in Mindoro, Laguna and Batangas, the people�s army is able to launch successful tactical offensives in these areas and inflict damage on the AFP and PNP.

21 January 2004
English Edition

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