7 Filipino workers, soldiers killed in new attacks

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7 Filipino workers, soldiers killed in new attacks

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Gunmen killed two soldiers and five other people in fresh violence in the southern Philippines.

24 October,2011 05:08 am

The series of violent events has complicated already-shaky peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of at least four insurgent groups fighting for Muslim self-rule in the resource-rich but impoverished region.Armed men killed four plantation workers and a militiaman and wounded eight other civilians in an ambush in Sumisip town on Basilan island after dawn Sunday, army chief Lt. Gen. Arturo Ortiz said, adding Moro rebels were the main suspects in the attack.Suspected Muslim guerrillas also ambushed troops in Lanao del Norte province Sunday, killing two soldiers and wounding four others. The army earlier reported that three soldiers had died in the attack in Lanao del Nortes Sultan Naga Dimaporo town, but later clarified that one soldier was still fighting for his life in a hospital.In a third attack, about 80 to 120 suspected Muslim rebels, apparently starving, ransacked stores and stole poultry and water buffaloes in remote Talusan town in Zamboanga Sibugay province Saturday then withdrew to an abandoned school in a mountainous outskirts of the town, army spokesman Maj. Harold Cabunoc said.The rebels left the school before army troops arrived in the area, Cabunoc said.Zamboanga Sibugay police chief Ruben Carriaga said the rebels may have staged the attacks in Talusan to divert the attention of military and police forces that have surrounded a separate group of 80 Muslim rebels and outlaws in the nearby town of Payao.Police wanted to arrest seven of the gunmen in Payao for various crimes, including kidnappings for ransom, but they resisted and have been sporadically clashing with government forces in recent days, Carriaga said.Rebel spokesman Von Al Haq said Moro Islamic Liberation Front men had nothing to do with the attacks in Basilan and Zamboanga Sibugay. He said he was trying to verify if his comrades staged the Lanao del Norte assault.The rebel group ordered all its fighters Saturday to halt all assaults, he said.