2 militiamen killed, another hurt in Basilan roadside bombing

COTABATO CITY - Two militiamen were killed while another was badly hurt in a roadside bombing in Barangay Limbo Candiis in Sumisip town in Basilan at past noontime on Monday.

Brig. Gen. Alvin Luzon, commander of the Army’s 101^st Infantry Brigade, and the Basilan Provincial Police Office separately confirmed on Monday afternoon that two members of the Citizens Auxiliary Army, a state paramilitary group, were killed in the incident.

Luzon said the explosion left another militiaman badly injured.

The victims, along with personnel of the 64^th Infantry Battalion, were out to verify the reported presence of armed men in an interior area in Barangay Candiis when the home-made bomb, packed with fragments of cast iron with jagged edges and planted along their route, went off.

The improvised explosive device was detonated from a distance using a mobile phone, according to Army and police officials in the island province. 

Local officials told reporters the bombing was perpetrated by few local terrorists aiming to create an impression that the surrender to the Basilan PPO and the 101^st Infantry Brigade of more than 400 members of the Abu Sayyaf in the past six years had not weakened their capability to launch terror attacks.

Almost all of the terrorists who had surrendered during the period through the intercession of local executives led by Gov. Hadjiman Salliman had been reintegrated into mainstream society.