Gunmen kill 5 in Philippines ambush

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines – Suspected Muslim rebels killed five rubber plantation workers Sunday in the latest eruption of violence in the southern Philippines in days, the military said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on Basilan island, which came just days after Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels launched deadly attacks that left 27 government forces dead.

“Five were killed in this morning’s ambush,” regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said.

He said the motive for the attack as well as those behind it were not immediately clear.

But he said MILF rebels were known to operate in the forested area where the ambush took place, and the attack could have been meant to divert military attention from an ongoing offensive against comrades responsible for earlier attacks.

MILF rebels killed 19 special forces who allegedly strayed into a rebel camp on Basilan in violation of a ceasefire Wednesday, in the biggest flare up of violence between the two sides in years.

A day later, four soldiers and four policemen were killed in separate attacks elsewhere in the main southern island of Mindanao.

President Benigno Aquino promised relatives of the slain soldiers that those behind the attacks would be hunted down, but rejected growing calls for the government to review its peace talks with the 12,000-member MILF.

The MILF has waged a rebellion since the 1970s for an independent Islamic state or autonomous rule on Mindanao, the mainly Catholic Philippines’ mineral-rich southern third the Muslims claim as their ancestral homeland.

The rebellion has claimed about 150,000 lives, with most of the deaths coming in the 1970s when an all-out war raged.

The two sides signed a truce in 2003 to pave the way for the peace talks, but the ceasefire is often marred by clashes, and the negotiations are currently in a stalemate.