October 28, 2008	Tuesday	Shawwal 28, 1429

MANILA, Oct 27: Philippine soldiers killed 13 Muslim guerrillas and wounded four on Monday in an attack in a southern marshland with artillery fire and air strikes, an army spokesman said.Major Randolph Cabangbang said a soldier was also killed and four wounded in two hours of fighting with rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) near Mamasapano town on the island of Mindanao.

“There was heavy fighting in the area,” Cabangbang told reporters, adding that the troops might have stumbled upon the main base of rogue MILF rebels. “We have to call in air strikes and artillery fire due to the large number of rebels in the area.”

Cabangbang said the troops later found 13 mangled bodies near a bunker that had been hit by a bomb. Seven of the bodies had been identified and were known to be followers of a certain Commander Abdullah.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in more than two months of fighting between security forces and renegades from the largest Muslim rebel group in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic state. The fighting has displaced over 650,000 people.

Violence erupted in mid-August after the country’s high court halted the signing of an agreement between the government and the MILF that would have expanded an existing Muslim autonomous region and granted it wider political, social and economic powers.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled to strike down the deal as unconstitutional, making it more difficult for the two sides to return to peace talks.

The 11,000-member MILF has been fighting for nearly 40 years to achieve self-determination. The conflict has killed more than 120,000 people and stunted growth in a region believed to be sitting on rich deposits of metals, oil and natural gas.—Reuters