Police officers trying to stop alleged robbers opened fire at a busy bridge in the Philippine capital in a shootout that left seven people dead, including two bystanders in a car, officials said yesterday.
Police said the shootout on Wednesday, one of the bloodiest in Manila in recent years, erupted after the gunmen fired at officers who tried to stop their van at a police checkpoint near the bridge.
Manila police chief Roberto Rosales first reported that four suspected robbery gang members were killed on the spot and three others died in the hospital.
However, Metropolitan Manila police chief Geary Barias said yesterday he was informed that two civilians were among those killed and ordered an investigation.
“I knew nothing about it when I inspected the scene of the incident,” Barias told Radio DZRH.
He said he wants to know if police committed any lapses in judgment. He said it was not clear if it was police or the gunmen who shot at the bystanders.
The two men, including a manager at a local brewery, were inside their car when the gunmen allegedly tried to commandeer it in the middle of the shootout with police. They got out when they were hit by bullets, police said.
Another police officer, Superintendent Mario Espino, said the suspects, some of them suspected in other robberies, were allegedly on the way to strike again when they were intercepted.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS