Go (coco)nuts! Share this story with your friends.
Warning: Reading this will lead to excruciating pain or unbearable rage.
“In a sworn statement taken by a Philippine National Police (PNP) investigator, Superintendent Raymund Train — the intelligence officer of the Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) who led a 38-member assault team in Mamasapano — revealed that the police commandos who clashed with rebels last January 25 did not run out of bullets, but their grenades were defective and apparently did not explode,” reports Jess Diaz in The Philippine Star.
In the Senate and House of Representatives hearings on the Mamasapano clash, it was alleged that the SAF troopers ran out of bullets. Relieved PNP-SAF chief Getulio Napeñas has made such a claim.
In Train’s case, when he was asked if his team ran out of ammunition, he said: “No, because I instructed my men to have fire discipline or shoot only when you see the enemy. However, many of our M203 ammunition were duds.”
The report explained that “an M203 is an M-16 rifle fitted with a grenade launcher.”
Train lost nine men in his team. The report added: “Another team, the SAF’s 55th Special Action Company, was to serve as a blocking force on the way out of the village. Thirty-five of 36 members of this force died in a clash with fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).”
The encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Jan 25 left 44 members of the elite Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) dead. The PNP-SAF troopers had been out to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias “Marwan” and Filipino bomb maker Abdul Basit Usman. Both men had bounties on their heads placed by the U.S. government: US$5 million for Marwan and US$1 million for Usman.
The operation turned bloody when members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they had to fight back because the PNP-SAF had breached their territory. They alleged that they had not been informed about the operation to get Marwan and Usman. The hostile encounter lasted 11 hours. The MILF lost 18 of their fighters.
Both the government and the MILF are currently doing probes on the Mamsapano encounter to determine what went wrong, as the incident threatens the Bangsamoro peace deal.
Photo: Gov.ph
