15 dead in renewed fighting

ZAMBOANGA CITY - At least 15 Moro rebels and two soldiers were killed as new fighting broke out in Lanao del Norte yesterday, the military said.

Five soldiers and at least 20 guerrillas were wounded in the clashes in four separate towns, military officials said.

The fighting began when about 200 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas tried to overrun an Army outpost at daybreak in the village of Inudaran in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, said Maj. Johnny Macanas, spokesman of the Army's 4th Infantry Division.

He said reinforcements held back the attackers in Inudaran, but five other outposts in the towns of Bacolod, Linawon and Balo-i, also in Lanao del Norte, were then attacked by MILF guerrillas.

By noon, battles were raging in the mountain villages of the four towns, and the Army deployed three battalions, equivalent to about 1,800 men, in a counter-offensive, Macanas said.

Macanas called the MILF attack a "serious violation" of a ceasefire agreement signed in 1997.

"Our focus now is to dismantle the rebel camp used as a springboard of terrorist attacks against the military and the civilians," Macanas said.

One artillery battalion and an armored company were also deployed to back up the assault on the camp, which continued yesterday afternoon, Macanas said.

He said the military has determined that guerrillas belonging to the MILF's 303rd Infantry Brigade were responsible for the bombing of buses aboard a ferry in Ozamiz City last month that killed at least 35 people in the worst such attack against civilians in recent years.

Moro rebels also killed a soldier, three militiamen and a farmer in separate attacks in Carmen, North Cotabato and Maguindanao the other day, the military said.