Philippine troops kill 10 suspected Muslim militants in deadliest clash so far this year

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine forces killed 10 suspected Muslim militants Friday in the deadliest clash so far this year in the south where troops have been fighting remaining rebels waging a considerably weakened separatist insurgency, officials said.

Decades of secessionist violence in the south, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation, considerably eased in 2014 after the largest armed group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which had thousands of armed guerrillas, signed a Muslim autonomy deal with the government.

A number of smaller armed groups which refused to get involved in the peace talks, however, continued to wage sporadic guerrilla attacks for a separate Muslim state.

The latest clash started when suspected members of the Muslim separatist group called Dawlah Islamiya-Maute opened fire on police officers and army troops trying to serve warrants for the arrest of their commander for murder and other alleged crimes in a village in Lanao del Sur province, police Maj. Gen. Robert Alexander Morico said.

Amerol Mangoranca and his fighters, who had aligned themselves with the Islamic State group in the past, had been blamed by the military for recent guerrilla attacks, including an ambush that killed four soldiers in nearby Lanao del Norte province in January, military officials said.

Mangoranca and nine other suspected militants, including four women, were killed in the hourlong gunbattle in Marantao village, Morico and military officials said, adding that there were no government casualties in the clash.

“Our forces have struck a decisive blow and we will continue forward until enduring peace is fully secured,” army 1st Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Yegor Rey Barroquillo Jr. said. “It is justice served for every fallen soldier, every grieving family and every community that suffered under terror.”

The government forces seized four rifles, a pistol, a grenade and bomb parts, according to the military and police.

An infant found at the battle scene was given unspecified medical treatment, the military said in a statement without elaborating.

The 2014 peace deal considerably eased decades of on-and-off fighting that left tens of thousands of combatants and civilians dead, displaced large numbers of rural villagers and stunted development in a resource-rich region with some of the country’s poorest areas.

The military is separately fighting a decades-old communist insurgency, which has also been considerably weakened by battle setbacks, infighting and surrenders.