MANILA: Government troops killed more than 90 insurgents and recovered dozens of bombs from captured rebel camps in a 12-day offensive in the southern Philippines, the military said yesterday. The rebels denied that any guerrillas were killed.
Deadly clashes have erupted sporadically between government troops and the 11,500-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the past 10 months.
Peace talks to expand a Muslim autonomous region collapsed last August when Christian communities, who feared they would lose land and power, asked the Supreme Court to block the deal.Army Col. Medardo Geslani said government forces had killed 93 rebels and recovered 45 bombs from several captured encampments in about a dozen offensives since June 4.
The military operations targeted guerrillas led by Ameril Umbra Kato, who remains at large, Geslani said.
“We are in the process of methodically destroying” Kato’s forces, he said.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner said the offensives focused on the marshy townships of Guindulongan and Talayan in Maguindanao, an impoverished Muslim province in central Mindanao where rebels have been fighting for self-rule since the 1970s.
