U.S. Sergeant Slain Near Philippine Air Base

MANILA â€”  A U.S. Air Force sergeant was shot and killed Monday night by gunmen in a residential subdivision near Clark Air Base north of Manila, American and Philippine authorities said today.

The victim, who was identified by local authorities as Sgt. Richard Blackmer, 34, apparently was walking his two German shepherds through the Mountain View subdivision about a mile from the U.S. base’s main gate about 9:30 p.m. when gunmen in a passing car opened fire with automatic weapons, local police said.

The two dogs also were killed in the attack.

A U.S. Air Force spokesman at Clark identified the victim only as an active-duty Air Force technical sergeant, adding that his name and hometown were being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Although the motive was unknown, the circumstances surrounding the slaying appeared different than the execution-style killings of three U.S. Air Force personnel by Communist hit squads last October. “Initial reports indicate that the murder was criminal in nature and not politically motivated,� base authorities said in an official statement broadcast on U.S. armed forces television and radio here this morning.

The military provided no details to support that conclusion, however, adding that a joint U.S.-Philippine investigation was under way.

The shooting was the first attack on American service personnel in the Philippines since the Oct. 28 attack, when urban guerrillas of the Communist New People’s Army murdered the three Air Force staffers in separate but well-coordinated attacks outside the base.

Guerrilla leaders later claimed responsibility for the killings. They also said more Americans had been targeted for death--principally mercenaries who they said are clandestinely assisting the Philippine armed forces in its 19-year battle against the guerrillas.

Responding to the threats, authorities at Clark, located near the city of Angeles about 50 miles north of Manila, and at Subic Bay Naval Base, the other U.S. military base here, started a program of “town patrols,� in which American security forces joined beefed-up Philippine military police in patrolling the many residential subdivisions where American personnel live outside the bases.

An Air Force spokesman said today that the joint patrols are still going on and that the subdivision where Monday night’s shooting took place is included in the regular rounds. After the October killings, U.S. security authorities at Clark also launched a series of mock counterterrorism exercises at the base. The most recent one concluded just last Saturday.

In a related incident, the state-run news service reported Monday that the wife of an American serviceman had been stabbed to death in her car in the town of Mabalacat, adjacent to Angeles. Police said that the motive appeared to be robbery.