MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Suspected Muslim militants attacked government troops guarding a school construction site in a rebel stronghold in the southern Philippines on Sunday, igniting a clash that killed 12 gunmen and two soldiers, a marine commander said.
About 50 gunmen attacked a marine detachment in hilly Talipao town in Sulu province at dawn, setting off two hours of fierce fighting that killed 12 suspected militants and two soldiers, marine commander Col. Romeo Tanalgo said. Six other military personnel were wounded before the gunmen split and withdrew into the forest, he said.
It was not immediately clear if the attackers belonged to the notoriously violent Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida-linked group regarded as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the Philippines. A larger Islamic rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front, has a presence in the impoverished, far-flung community.
Government troops recovered seven rebel firearms at the scene of the fighting and were checking if there were more bodies of slain gunmen in the area. Reinforcement troops were pursuing the fleeting militants, Tanalgo said.
Washington has blacklisted the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization, blaming it for many bomb attacks, kidnappings for ransom and beheadings. The militants have attacked and killed American citizens in the past.
The Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace accord with the government in 1996 after it dropped its secessionist bid and settled for limited Muslim autonomy in the south, homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.
Most of the Moro rebels, however, did not lay down their arms and now complain that the Philippine government reneged on many political and economic promises under the 1996 pact. They have occasionally been blamed for launching attacks against government forces and have been suspected of harboring Abu Sayyaf militants in Sulu, about 610 miles (980 kilometers) south of the capital, Manila.
