Filipino troops, rebels forge truce after fighting kills 10, amid peace talks

Philippine troops forged a ceasefire with Muslim guerillas after 10 combatants were killed in clashes in a southern village and frantic efforts were made to prevent an escalation that could threaten a major peace accord, military commanders and the rebels said Friday.

The sporadic clashes erupted Tuesday and Wednesday in Ulitan village on the island province of Basilan, where emergency talks arranged by government and rebel mediators led to an indefinite ceasefire agreement late Thursday between army forces and Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebel commanders.

The clashes left three soldiers dead and 15 others wounded, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdurasad Sirajan said. A former rebel commander, Dan Asnawi, said at least seven insurgents were killed and six others were wounded.

The conflict underscored the fragility of law and order in a southern region faced with a surfeit of loose firearms, private armies, crushing poverty and a long history of violence.

Government and rebel mediators were “able to stop the fighting with a dialogue between both sides,” regional military commander Brig. Gen. Arturo Rojas said. “It was an unfortunate event since both sides incurred casualties.”

Military and rebel commanders at the scene of the fighting accused each other of violating the 2014 peace agreement, which eased years of bloody and extensive fighting between government forces and the Muslim rebel front, the largest separatist insurgent group in the south of the largely Roman Catholic nation.