Govt forces guarding Ampatuan warehouse attacked

A group of armed men on Monday night attacked government forces manning a warehouse owned by the powerful Ampatuan clan in Maguindanao province, a police official said Tuesday. No one was hurt, however, even as government forces tried to repel the more or less 40 armed attackers, according to Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, spokesman of the Philippine National Police (PNP). Espina said the raid occurred at about 11 p.m. at the Ampatuan warehouse in Barangay Bagong in Shariff Aguak, the provincial capitol of Maguindanao. The Ampatuans are implicated in the grisly November 23 massacre of at least 57 people - 31 of them journalists - in Ampatuan town, also in Maguindanao. Several of its members, including its patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr., are now in government custody. Earlier this month, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo placed Maguindanao under martial law to quell what the government said is a looming rebellion by alleged followers of the Ampatuan clan. Military and police searches that ensued in the declaration of martial law yielded hundreds of high-powered firearms and thousands of ammunition, among others. - Aie Balagtas See/KBK, GMANews.TV