Military operations in the country’s south would not target Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels but only lawless elements within the organization and other armed groups engaged in kidnapping, extortion and other criminal activities, he said.

“I have instructed intensified operations against all these criminal elements,” Aquino said in a national broadcast. “The mailed-fist of the state will be brought to bear upon them so that justice may be served.”

Aquino rejected calls from his allies to stop talking peace and launch punitive actions against the Muslim rebels.

“We will not pursue all-out war. We will instead pursue all-out justice,” he said. “All-out war is indiscriminate and borne out of anger. All-out justice is sober and fair.”

Aquino said troops were targeting about 10 suspects involved in the killing of 19 soldiers last week.

He said the government was coordinating with the MILF in bringing the suspects to justice. About 30 soldiers have died since last week after clashes between government forces and the rebels in the southern region of Mindanao.

The MILF had ordered its forces to stand down as government troops pursue criminal gangs, a rebel spokesman said after Aquino’s statement.

Since 1997, the MILF has been in stop-start talks with Manila to end more than four decades of conflict that has killed 120,000 people, displaced 2 million and hobbled growth in poor but resource-rich Muslim areas.

Hours before Aquino spoke, the military dropped bombs on a small remote village in Zamboanga Sibugay province on Mindanao island. About 150 armed men, believed to be rogue Muslim rebels, had seized control of a village school after soldiers attacked their positions.

Stephen Lillie, the British ambassador to Manila, praised Aquino’s position to pursue peaceful dialogue to end the conflict, but expressed concern over the rising violence.

“Meeting violence with violence will not solve the conflict in the southern Philippines,” Lillie said in a statement. The United Kingdom is one of four governments in the International Contact Group supporting the peace talks.