ZAMBOANGA CITY: Communist rebels have owned up to a daring assault on a Japanese fruit exporter in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

Mamerto Bagani, a spokesman for the New People’s Army, said rebel forces raided the banana plantation and packaging facility of Sumitomo Fruits in the village of Barobo in Bukidnon’s Valencia City as a punitive action in retaliation for its anti-people activities and land grabbing.