ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 14, 2012) – A landmine explosion on Thursday wounded a farmer in the Muslim province of Basilan in the southern Philippines where security forces are battling Abu Sayyaf militants tied to Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya.
Officials said the explosion occurred near a rubber plantation in the village called Canas in Maluso town where patrolling troops frequently pass.
“The victim, who was working on his farm, apparently tripped on the landmine,” Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang, a spokesman for the Western Mindanao Command, told The Manila Times.
He said the farmer is in serious condition from shrapnel wounds in the body and right leg. No individual or group claimed responsibility for the blast, but security forces are fighting militants tagged as behind the kidnapping of a former Australian soldier Warren Rodwell.
Rodwell, 52, was seized from his house in the seaside town of Ipil in Zamboanga Sibugay province in December and brought by the kidnappers to Basilan by boat. (Mindanao Examiner)
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