ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 31 January 2008— At least nine people, including five government soldiers, were slain in a bomb attack and in clashes with rebels in the main southern Philippine island of Mindanao yesterday, authorities said.

Police said four of the fatalities, all civilians, were killed in a bomb explosion outside a tuna canning factory in General Santos City on the southeastern side of the island, according to a police official and media reports.

The army soldiers killed in fighting with communist rebels in the province of Davao Oriental, north of General Santos City.

General Santos police chief Roberto Po said a home-made bomb went off at past 6 p.m. outside the main gates of Philbest Canning Corporation in the village of Bawing, wounding 30 other people.

He said the explosive was rigged to a parked motorcycle outside the gate.

No individual or group claimed responsibility for the blast and police is still investigating the motive of the attack.

The 2.5-hectare cannery complex houses a power plant, a boiler area, a wastewater treatment facility, microbiology and chemical laboratories and a warehouse. It was not immediately known whether the attack targeted the cannery, which ships canned tuna products to the United States, Japan and Europe.

Philbest cannery has refused to comment on the bombing.

Known as the tuna capital of the Philippines, General Santos is home to some of the biggest tuna canning factories in Southeast Asia. Six of the country’s eight tuna canneries are located in the city.

Established in 2001, Philbest employs 1,500 workers and is one of the biggest employers in the southern port city.Police yesterday night said they were not ruling out possible business rivalry as a motive.

The last major bombing in General Santos was in January 2007 when six people were killed by a home-made bomb.

Over the years the city has been rocked by a series of bombings, some of which have been blamed on the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf.

Neighboring cities have also been subjected to attacks.

Communist Rebels

In Davao Oriental, officials said the army soldiers were killed in fierce fighting with more than 70 guerrillas of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) near the village of Campawan in the seaside town of Baganga.

Six more soldiers wounded and it was immediately known how many insurgents were killed in the fighting, said Gen. Ernesto Boac, commander of the Philippine Army’s 10th Infantry Division.

Boac said by phone from his headquarters in Davao that villagers were helping authorities by providing information about the NPA, blamed for the string of attacks on government and civilians targets in the province the past years.

Col. Benito de Leon, a regional army spokesman, said at least six soldiers were also wounded in the fighting and that villagers have reported undetermined number of enemy casualties. “We are awaiting reports from our ground commanders in Baganga town. Six soldiers are wounded in the fighting,” he said in a separate interview.

The attack came two days after Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff, vowed that there would be no letup in the campaign to crush the communist insurgency.

Esperon, whose term was extended by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for three months, had been criticized by opposition lawmakers when he said his last three months in office could be bloody as he pushes for results in the counterinsurgency campaign.

He explained, however, that waging an purely violent campaign was not what he meant. He said what the government was waging is a “holistic war,” which “involves not only combat intelligence, civil and military operations but also political, economic and social efforts and activities not only of the AFP, but also the whole governmen.”

Esperon, who was in Mindanao on Tuesday to discuss with generals and middle-level commanders how to carry out the campaign, noted that the anti-insurgency is “actually more about development than combat operations.”

The Philippine government opened peace talks with the rebels, but negotiations collapsed in 2004 after the United States and the European Union listed the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA as foreign terrorist organizations on Manila’s prodding.

The NPA is estimated to have about 7,500 armed members, but the military said the number has dwindled to a little over 5,000. (With input from agencies)