A mayor from a conflict zone in the southern Philippines survived an assassination attempt last Sunday when an assailant fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the armored vehicle he was traveling in, local authorities reported on Monday, releasing a video of the event. 'The mayor (Akmad Mitra) Ampatuan was unharmed, while two members of his security team were injured,' the statement from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the southern archipelago, where the attack occurred, said. The incident occurred on Sunday morning in the town of Shariff Aguak in the province of Maguindanao del Sur, where the mayor is Ampatuan. According to images shared on Facebook, two armed assailants, one with a rocket-propelled grenade, exited a gray van to fire at the car carrying the mayor, who managed to escape. The regional police director, Jose Melencio Nartatez, said today that agents pursued the van and shot dead three of the suspected assailants, while they are searching for a fourth and investigating the motives. The Muslim Mindanao region (Bangsamoro in the local language) has been embroiled in a separatist conflict for over five decades, involving several armed groups, which has claimed 150,000 lives, displaced millions of people, and hindered the economic development of this resource-rich area.