Three soldiers and at least four rebels have been killed in fierce clashes between the Philippine Army and members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the island province of Basilan.
At least 13 soldiers and an unknown number of rebels were also wounded in the fighting which could threaten a 2014 peace agreement that had brought a degree of calm to the restive southern Philippines’ region.
Brigadier-General Domingo Gobway, commander of the Philippine Army’s Joint Task Force Basilan, said gun battles broke out on Tuesday, Wednesday and again on Thursday morning around Basilan’s Ungkaya Pukan town, located some 1,390 km (863 miles) south of the capital, Manila.
The shooting had died down on Wednesday but re-erupted on Thursday morning when the front’s fighters – the largest rebel group in the south of the largely Roman Catholic Philippines – attacked government soldiers, Gobway said, according to the Manila Bulletin.
“We thought that it was already over but the MILF provoked our troops, they opened fire,” Gobway said, adding that an estimated 100 fighters, including “lawless elements” were involved in the battles.
The confrontations erupted as soldiers were engaged in continuing military operations to hunt down armed criminal elements responsible for recent bomb attacks, said Gobway, who accused the rebels of protecting some of the suspects.
Military leaders and the front’s commanders separately ordered their forces to halt the fighting and begin de-escalation talks on Thursday.
Both sides accused each other of violating the 2014 peace accord, which had eased years of bloody and extensive fighting between the government and rebels in Basilan where an abundance of firearms, private armies, crushing poverty and a long history of violence have created a lethal mix of forces.