PIKIT, NORTH COTABATO—Philippine Air Force planes Sunday bombed suspected Moro rebel positions and ground troops pounded them with cannons and mortars after hundreds of guerrillas defied a government ultimatum to withdraw.

Eyewitness accounts put government casualties at three dead, while officials said one Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel was killed in the clashes that erupted mainly in North Cotabato province.

Armed Forces Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna said fighting was taking place “eyeball-to-eyeball” in some areas and that the military and police were “prepared for a long drawn-out action,” Agence France-Presse reported.

Some 500 guerrillas were involved in the fighting with Army units, including those from the 602nd Brigade, the 40th Infantry Battalion, and 7th Infantry Battalion, according to Brig. Gen. Jorge Segovia, acting AFP command center chief.

Military reports mentioned no deaths among soldiers but said at least six of them were wounded in skirmishes that occurred in areas largely outside the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where regional elections were to be held on Monday.

There was no indication that the new flare-up was directly related to the ARMM elections. But some of the fighting spilled over to two villages in Northern Kabuntalan, in Shariff Kabunsuan, where the rebels suffered one dead, according to Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao, the ARMM police director.

Thousands flee

The weeks-long tension has forced some 100,000 villagers to flee their homes, relief officials in North Cotabato said.

Guided by troops on the ground, OV-10 Broncos, SF-260 planes and MG-520 attack helicopters hammered MILF positions in North Cotabato with 260-pound bombs and rockets, a senior PAF official monitoring the military operation said.

“We already launched air operations using OV-10s, MG-520s and SF-260s. Bombs, rockets and machine gun fire were delivered to targets given by ground troops,” said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not in charge of releasing statements to the media.

The bombs were dropped in the area “of the 105th Base Command of the MILF, which is out of control already,” the official told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

Further air strikes were expected until MILF troops heeded the government’s demand for a pullout.

Withdrawal ordered

The government had given about 800 guerrillas until 10 a.m. on Friday to vacate several villages they had occupied supposedly in violation of a 2003 ceasefire.

Officials accused the rebels of burning houses, destroying farms, stealing cattle and driving tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The fresh conflict came at a crucial point in peace negotiations between the government and the MILF rebels, who have reached an agreement calling for the establishment of an independent Bangsamoro homeland.

The formal signing of the accord was stopped last week by the Supreme Court, acting on petitions filed by Christian politicians opposed to the inclusion of their areas in the proposed Muslim homeland.

On Saturday, the rebels were ordered by their leaders to pull back but later complained that their withdrawal was hampered by government troops and armed villagers in areas where they were to pass. The rebels said some had sporadically fired at them.

Ready for war

Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesperson of the 6th Infantry Division, said the rebels under Commander Ombra Kato appeared to have become renegades for defying their leaders’ order to pull out.

Hundreds of rebels from Maguindanao are fighting government forces in Barangays Tomado, Dungguan, and Dualing in Aleosan; Barangay Tapudok and Kolambog in Pikit; and Barangay Baliki in Midsayap, all in North Cotabato.

“We are backing the local police in restoring normalcy in the area,” Ando said. “They (the rebels) refused to obey their officials, therefore they are ready for war.”

Ando added: “We do not like war but we have the mandate to enforce the rule of law. The government has given them enough time.”

‘Like New Year’

Col. Diosdado Carreon, chief of the 40th Infantry Battalion, said government forces had to fire howitzers in retaliation for rebel attacks that began at 6 a.m.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol said four of the soldiers were wounded by rockets and M-203 grenades fired by the rebels.

“The firing went on without stop for an hour ... It seemed cannons were also being fired,” evacuee Severina Dumag said in Filipino.

Rex Torino, reporter of Radio dxMS, said of the exchange of gunfire: “It was like it was the New Year.”

Torino said he saw three dead soldiers but military officials refused to identify them as their families still had to be informed.

Result of miscommunication

Eid Kabalu, spokesperson for the MILF, said that “there was continuous shelling. I hope it will not escalate to other areas.”

Kabalu said that before Sunday’s clashes, a mechanism for an orderly pullout should have been in place but there was miscommunication between the two sides on the implementation of the withdrawal process.

“Our forces are moving out but still the Army and the civilian militia were running after them, so our troops fought back as it is happening now,” Kabalu said.

In Aleosan, North Cotabato, motorists driving on the national highway in Pagangan village saw soldiers firing howitzers from 9 to 11 a.m.

Heavy rains started at around 2:30 p.m. caused suspension of hostilities.

Cat and mouse

Segovia said that the military’s “surgical” strikes were confined to specific areas in Midsayap, Aleosan, Pikit, and Libungan.

“These are adjoining towns, and because they are playing cat and mouse with government forces, where they will leave one area and then return, the situation is very fluid,” Segovia said.

Segovia said the military action was not an “offensive” requiring the use of all military might but a “clearing operation” in support of the PNP. With reports from Christine O. Avendaño in Manila, Edwin Fernandez, Nash B. Maulana, Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao, AP, AFP and Reuters