Six communist rebels killed in clash with army

Bodies of communist rebels in a rice field after a clash with government troops in Tarlac province.

DPA/Manila

Six communist rebels were killed in a clash overnight with government troops in the northern Philippines, an army commander said yesterday.

The clash erupted Tuesday evening in a village in Camiling town in Tarlac province, 135km north of Manila, Colonel Henry Sabare said.

The fighting lasted until dawn yesterday when troops recovered the bodies of the guerrillas, Sabare said.

In the southern city of Davao, 990km south of Manila, communist rebels freed five police officers they captured June 17 at a roadblock. The policemen were on their way to a market when they were abducted.

The officers were turned over to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, said Captain Severino David, a regional military spokesman.

“They are currently at hospital,” he said. “We are having their medical condition checked.”

The hostilities were the latest between government forces and communist rebels in the absence of formal negotiations on a peace settlement. Both sides said, however, that peace talks aimed at ending one of the longest-running leftist insurgencies in Asia have not collapsed.

Rebel leaders based in the Netherlands have expressed doubts that the negotiations, which have been stalled since 2004, would resume under the administration of President Benigno Aquino.

Philippine troops on Tuesday killed eight Muslim rebels who belonged to a breakaway faction opposed to peace talks between separatists and the government, the military said.

The fighting erupted after the guerrillas attacked a lorry carrying petrol in Guindulungan town in Maguindanao province, 960 kilometres south of Manila.

A portion of the national highway was closed to traffic for most of the day as troops cleared the area of the rebels, who also attacked an army detachment in nearby Datu Piang town.

Major General Romeo Gapuz, an army commander, said eight guerrillas were killed in the fighting. Troops also recovered two firearms and two improvised explosive devices from the slain rebels.

He said the guerrillas belonged to the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM), which opposes the ongoing negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“We expect them to continue such actions to further disrupt the peace talks,” said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala.

The MILF, the largest Muslim separatist rebel group in the southern region of Mindanao, is finalising details of a preliminary peace deal signed in October with the government for the creation of a new autonomous entity by 2016.

The BIFM broke away from the MILF in 2011 and has vowed to fight for a separate Islamic state in Mindanao, a demand which the MILF had dropped in exchange for greater autonomy for Filipino Muslims.