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MANILA: Hundreds of troops have been sent to the southern Philippines to tackle a rapid rise in communist guerrilla attacks against civilian targets, the military said Tuesday.
A battalion of mechanised infantry - about 500 soldiers with tanks, armoured vehicles and field artillery - has been deployed in eastern Mindanao island, said the region's military spokesman, Major Armand Rico.
The deployment is a "response to the clamour of governors and mayors of (the region) to stop the criminal and terroristic acts of the godless communist terrorists," Rico told reporters.
He did not say if more units would be deployed there.
Eastern Mindanao has seen a major surge of attacks by the New People's Army (NPA) against mining firms, telecommunications towers, and banana plantations.
Over the past year the 5,000-member Maoist guerrilla force has also attacked a resort island, two prison facilities, and municipal police posts as it stepped up its campaign to seize weapons and raise funds through extortion.
Last weekend the NPA set fire to a drilling rig at the Tampakan copper mining project of Anglo-Swiss mining giant Xstrata plc.
Four infantry divisions - nearly half the Philippine Army - are already deployed in Mindanao, with about half assigned to deal with the NPA threat to the north and east of the country's second largest island.
Western Mindanao is also a hotbed of a decades-old Muslim separatist insurgency, though a ceasefire is in effect amid peace talks.
Rico said the NPA attacks "have seriously threatened the livelihood of the people as the (rebels) attack the businesses and industries that provide jobs for our people."
He warned there was a danger of a "possible return of the chaotic situation during the 1980s," when the NPA operated out of the slums of major Mindanao cities and launched assassination campaigns against soldiers and police.
"Hence we need to launch intensified operations on known locations of (rebels) who keep on intimidating the people and extorting their earnings."
The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been waging a 39-year armed campaign across the country.
- AFP/yb
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