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MIDSAYAP, Philippines: Fighting resumed in the southern Philippines on Sunday despite a commitment by Muslim guerrillas to withdraw from inhabited areas where they had been menacing local residents.
Eyewitness accounts and radio reports from Midsayap town on the southern island of Mindanao said troops were exchanging mortar and heavy machinegun fire with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels.
Civilians also began fleeing their homes in Midsayap and nearby towns amid renewed tensions between the armed forces and the rebels.
Four soldiers were wounded before dawn by MILF snipers near Midsayap, said provincial governor Jesus Sacdalan.
However military spokesmen could not be contacted for comment.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said in an interview aired over local radio that the Muslim rebels had been trying to pull out of these areas but that pro-government militiamen had threatened them, forcing the MILF forces to fight back.
"Right now, the (joint) ceasefire committee is thrashing things out... so the arrangement can push through but until that is threshed out... there will be tensions because the military is continuing to open fire," Kabalu said in a radio interview.
MILF fighters had occupied areas near communities around this majority-Christian town last week even as a draft peace accord between the government and the rebels was struck down by a Supreme Court order on Monday.
The rebel leadership earlier agreed to pull out of the areas near the communities but many MILF guerrillas have refused to withdraw and have even hoisted their flags over these areas, local officials said.
Governor Sacdalan said the rebels appeared to be intentionally disregarding the orders of the MILF leadership.
"They continue to stay and harass our civilian populace," Sacdalan said.
The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a 30-year guerrilla campaign for a separate Islamic state in the south of the largely-Christian Philippines but in 2003 the group signed a ceasefire with the government to open the way for peace talks.
In late-July, both sides said they had completed a draft agreement for recognition of the MILF's "ancestral domain" in the south.
However local officials in Mindanao opposed this agreement and filed a suit with the Supreme Court, resulting in a suspension of the draft accord, raising new tensions with the MILF.
- AFP/yb
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