Fresh Fighting In Southern Philippines

[sbk]

Fresh fighting in southern Philippines, 20 dead

Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:08am EST

(Adds toll rises to 20)

MANILA, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Philippine soldiers killed 15 Muslim rebels in clashes in the southern island of Jolo on Friday as hundreds of troops were rushed to secure Manila following a botched coup attempt, the military said.

The military lost five soldiers in the clashes.

The government put down a bloodless mutiny by a small group of renegade soldiers in a Manila hotel on Thursday and reinforcements were sent from other parts of the country.

In the south, where Manila is battling communist and Muslim insurgencies, Friday's hours-long gunbattle with insurgents in the jungles of Jolo overshadowed the attempted coup.

"We lost five men and 12 others were wounded," Colonel Cesario Atienza, a Marine brigade commander told reporters by phone, adding his troops recovered the bodies of six rebels and a cache of weapons and munitions.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jonas Lumawag told reporters there were intelligence reports indicating 15 rebels were killed and 20 wounded, including a leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who held a Marine general in February on Jolo.

"Based on signal intercepts, three other sub-leaders were wounded in the fighting," Lumawag said.

Jolo, a base for Muslim militants in the largely Roman Catholic country, was the scene of one of the bloodiest days in recent Philippine military history, when at least 20 soldiers were killed in one day in August.

Atienza said soldiers had initially clashed with a small group of Islamic militants from the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf on Friday but a larger group of MNLF rebels joined the fray.

The MNLF signed a peace deal with the government in 1996 but its members, which have blood ties with the Abu Sayyaf, frequently clash with soldiers amid resentment over the deal's implementation.

In Manila, about 500 troops from an army camp in the north arrived in a convoy of 10 trucks at the capital's main military base to provide extra security after the botched coup.

An army spokesman said an additional 100 soldiers from an elite unit trained and equipped by the U.S. Army special forces were due later in the day.

"We remain on high state of alert," General Hermogenes Esperon, the military chief, told reporters (Reporting by Manny Mogato, editing by Sanjeev Miglani)