MANILA, Philippines?Sporadic clashes in Centr0al Mindanao over the weekend left at least nine Moro rebels, including an officer nicknamed Commander Marlboro, and a soldier dead, the military said Sunday.

Maj. Peter Edwin Navarro, spokesperson of the 601st Brigade, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone the hostilities that started Saturday noon in the marshy areas of Datu Piang town in Maguindanao also wounded two soldiers.

Navarro said troops engaged an undetermined number of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters under Ameril Ombra Kato in the villages of Tatapan, Bialong and Pusao. Kato pillaged several towns in North Cotabato last month, enraged by the aborted signing of a deal on an expanded Bangsamoro homeland.

?There was a running gun battle. Residents in those areas are rejecting Kato?s group but they keep on returning there from time to time to get food supplies,? Navarro said.

Among the seven guerrillas killed was Commander Malborro, according to Navarro.

?Up to now, the fighting is ongoing and the bodies of the dead rebels were still in the site,? he said.

?There was no rebel camp captured as reported by other media organizations,? he added.

Navarro said troops fired mortars but did not use howitzers or call in air support.

Eid Kabalu, MILF civil-military affairs chief, confirmed the death of a field commander, but said only two rebels were killed in Datu Piang.

Kabalu said eight soldiers were killed in separate intense clashes on Saturday, but Navarro denied this.

In Aleosan, North Cotabato, MILF guerrillas using rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked an army and militia detachment at Sitio Pupoyon, Barangay Dualing, on Saturday night, according to Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, 6th Infantry Division spokesperson.

?At least two young rebels were killed, many were wounded,? Ando said, adding that the rebel casualties were seen by troops through night vision devices.

No one was hurt on the government side, Ando said.

Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres Jr. told dzBB radio that in all MILF fighters attacked six military positions in Maguindanao, Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato over the weekend but reported no casualties in the small skirmishes.

Also Sunday, an improvised device exploded near the public market in Kiamba town in Sarangani, but caused no injuries, said Maj. Armand Rico, spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Command. Jeoffrey Maitem and Edwin O. Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao; and Nikko Dizon in Manila