The Philippine military said Wednesday about 50 militants were killed by government soldiers in clashes in southern province of Sulu over the weekend.
The military also said that initial information indicated that rogue members of the Muslim rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had collaborated with U.S. listed terrorist group AbuSayyaf in the deadly fire-fight.
"We have raw reports about it. Some wayward elements of the MILF in Basilan that's also coddling the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan," said Armed Forces chief Gen. Alexander Yano, three days after Marine soldiers engaged a mixture of MILF rebels, Abu Sayyaf and kidnap-for-ransom group members in Al Barkah town.
Five Marines soldiers died and 25 others were wounded as the troops raided a hill believed to be a strategic point in the Abu Sayyaf's kidnap-for-ransom activities.
Yano said the military is bringing up the matter of collusion between the MILF and Abu Sayyaf before a committee that is implementing the standing truce between the government and the MILF, the country's largest Muslim rebel. The MILF had been negotiating with the government for a final peace accord before clashes escalated in August and moth-folded the talks.
Yano said his instruction to the Marine soldiers in Basilan is to continue with the pursuit operations against the Abu Sayyaf. But the MILF rebels who are in alliance with the Abu Sayyaf should be treated in the same way, the army chief added.
MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, however, has denied such collusion and accused the military of shifting the operation focus to MILF, local media reported.
The Philippine Star, one of the Philippines' leading newspapers, reported on Wednesday that a Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist was killed in last Sunday's clashes but Yano said the military is still verifying the information and has yet recover any dead body.
The fighting was the second major encounter in Al-Barka since last year after soldiers entered an MILF base in search for a kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi, who was kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf on June 10 in Zamboanga del Sur province.
The fighting on July 10, 2007 in Al-Barka left 14 marines dead,10 of them beheaded.
The 12,000-strong MILF has been fighting for a separate Islamic state since 1978. It signed a ceasefire in 2003 with the government, but skirmishes have been going on and off along with the peace talks between the two sides.
Violence escalated in the southern Philippines after the country's Supreme Court halted the signing of the pact scheduled for Aug. 5 in Kuala Lumpur. More than half a million people have been affected by the military conflicts.
Source:Xinhua
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