In the hours before dawn on Mon., May 16, 2016, heavily armed assailants, dressed in green and camouflage army uniforms, attacked the main police station in Aux Cayes, Haiti’s third largest city. The toll was heavy. One policeman and four attackers were killed, and several were wounded on both sides.

At the station, the attackers killed police officer Tisson Jean Pierre, assigned to the Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO), police said.

Another policeman, Wendy Dorléan, was seriously wounded and rushed to the hospital. Officer Pierre Jeannot and an agent of the National Penitentiary Administration (APENA) were slightly wounded. Other police officers were handcuffed and brutalized inside the police station. The assailants sacked the office of the station’s chief and hauled off heavy weapons, fleeing towards the town of Pestel, where paramilitary chieftain and Senate candidate Guy Philippe has holed up for years.

Meanwhile, among the attackers, four were killed and three wounded. One of the attackers died in the shooting at the station, and three others in an accident on the road back to Pestel.

The Haitian National Police (PNH) arrested three of the attackers after the accident, one of them named Rémy Théléus, who later died. In an interview widely circulated on social media, Théléus admits to journalists that he and his confederates were under the command of Guy Philippe, who led the so-called “rebels” that helped overthrow former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

According to Théléus, Philippe’s paramilitary commandos aim to take over police stations around Haiti in order to create havoc and overthrow the provisional president, Jocelerme Privert. Monday’s attack was the opening salvo in a campaign that aspires to spread across the country.

In Haiti’s north, Daniel Marcel, who goes under the name of Commander Moïse, has made provocative declarations, saying that his soldiers are preparing to attack all the police stations in that department.

After the bloody attack, Aux Cayes was paralyzed with schools remaining closed all day. In the capital, the Superior Council of the National Police (CSPN) met hurriedly with President Jocelerme Privert at the Prime Minister's office to deal with the crisis. According to a PNH spokesman, the police now control of the Southern Department, but they have not yet arrested Guy Philippe.

The armed attack comes two days before May 18, the 213th anniversary of the Haitian flag. The paramilitaries are also preparing to sabotage the annual Flag Day commemoration in the town of Arcahaie, where the 1803 meeting between independence war Generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Alexandre Pétion took place.

The “rebel” force which Guy Philippe commanded in 2003-2004 carried out several attacks, including a Dec. 17, 2001 assault on the National Palace. Accused of complicity in the assault was one of the Palace’s former security chiefs, Youri Latortue, who is now a questionably elected Senator heading, ironically, a commission investigating corruption. Latortue and Philippe remain close political allies.