MALAYBALAY/MANILA: Crossfire between the military and communist rebels wounded a bird-watching guide and scared seven foreigners Friday in a protected mountain area in the southern Philippines, officials said.

Col. Jesse Alvarez, an army commander in the area, said the military was not aware the bird-watchers were there when the 10-minute firefight ensued.

Daniel Somera, an environment official supervising the Mount Kitanglad protected area in Bukidnon province, said one of four Filipino guides was wounded and brought to a hospital but the rest of the bird-watching group escaped unhurt. Three Britons, three Danes and one Australian were in the mountain area near where the firefight occurred.

Australian Richard Lindsay Johnstone was earlier reported missing but has since been found and has joined the other foreigners who traveled back to nearby Cagayan de Oro City, where they are staying. Somera said. Johnstone’s hometown was not immediately available.

“They are all safe but traumatized,” said Somera, whose office issued a permit to the foreigners for the bird-watching trip.

A Dutch bird-watcher has been held hostage for three years by Abu Sayyaf extremists who kidnapped him, his Italian companion and their Filipino guide in southern Tawi-Tawi province. The Italian and the Filipino were able to escape.

A militant targeted in a deadly clash in the Philippines last month that has jeopardized a milestone peace process between the government and rebels was wounded in the fighting, a government official said on Friday.

Efforts to end the decades-old insurgency by rebels have stalled since the Jan. 25 firefight on the southern island of Mindanao, in which 44 policemen and 18 rebels were killed.

Legislators drawing up a law to give the minority community in the area autonomy, the next step of the peace process, have suspended their work, demanding an investigation into the bloodshed.

A Philippine militant called Abdul Basit Usman, a foreign-trained bomb expert, was one of the targets of the Jan. 25 raid, in which another militant, the Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, is believed to have been killed.

Government forces are hunting for Usman who melted away after the clash. Esmael Mangudadatu, governor of the southern province of Maguindanao, said he had been wounded.

“Basit Usman was shot in the shoulder and he can’t move the right side of his body because of a mild stroke,” Mangudadatu said in a television interview, citing information he said he got from several sources.

“He has aides who were also badly hit from the encounter.”

It was not clear if Usman suffered the stroke before or after the clash.

The rebels involved in the peace talks, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said Usman and the other wanted militant were not in their camp. They said they were investigating and have offered to help government forces find Usman.