Scores killed in southern Philippines as troops clash with rebels

More than 100 breakaway Muslim guerrillas launched attacks against army troops in the southern Philippines, sparking clashes that killed five soldiers and scores of insurgents who wanted to undermine peace talks between the government and the largest Muslim rebel group in the country, the military said Sunday.

The daylong clashes involving the hard-line Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters erupted Saturday in the marshy outskirts of Datu Piang and Shariff Saydona Mustapha towns in Maguindanao province and in a coastal village of nearby North Cotabato province. Army forces were firing artillery rounds against the rebels Sunday in a mountain encampment, said regional army spokesman Captain Anthony Bulao.

Hundreds of villagers fled from Datu Piang, an impoverished rural town about 900 kilometres southeast of Manila, officials said.

The Muslim guerrillas involved in the fighting broke off from the largest Muslim rebel group in the country, the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, two years ago. The rebel faction led by commander Ameril Umbra Kato has rejected the talks between the main rebel group and the government, saying the talks have gone nowhere, and vowed to continue fighting for a separate homeland for minority Muslims in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.

Despite the rebel infighting, the peace talks have progressed in recent years and were scheduled to resume Monday in Malaysia to try to iron out differences in a proposed revenue-sharing accord that would be a pillar of an emerging Muslim autonomy deal.

“There have been reports that they wanted to commit atrocities to sabotage the talks,” Bulao said of the breakaway guerrillas.