MANILA: Philippine forces killed 10 suspected Muslim militants on Friday in the deadliest fighting so far this year in the south, where troops are fighting remaining rebels for a largely weakened separatist rebellion, officials said.Decades of separatist violence in the south, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation, largely subsided in 2014 when the largest armed group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has thousands of armed guerrillas, signed a Muslim autonomy accord with the government.However, several small armed groups, which refused to join the peace talks, continued sporadic guerrilla attacks calling for a separate Muslim state.Police Maj. Gen. Robert Alexander Morico said the latest clashes began when suspected members of the Muslim separatist group known as Daula Islamiyah-Mautee opened fire on police officers and army soldiers trying to issue a warrant for the arrest of their commander for murder and other alleged crimes in a village in Lanao del Sur province.Amerol Mangoranka and its fighters, who have aligned themselves with the Islamic State group in the past, were blamed by the military for recent guerrilla attacks, including an ambush in nearby Lanao del Norte province in January that killed four soldiers, military officials said.Mangoranka and nine other suspected militants, including four women, were killed in an hour-long gunfight in the village of Marantao, Moriko and military officials said, adding that there were no government casualties in the clash.Maj. Gen. Yegor Ray Barroquillo Jr., commander of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, said, “Our forces have delivered a decisive blow, and we will continue to advance until lasting peace is completely secured.” “This is justice for every martyred soldier, every bereaved family and every community victimized by terror.” According to the army and police, government forces seized four rifles, a pistol, a grenade and bomb parts.An infant found at the battle site had been given unspecified medical treatment, the army said in a statement, without elaborating.The 2014 peace accord largely ended decades of fighting that has left thousands of fighters and civilians dead, displaced scores of villagers and stunted development in a resource-rich region that borders some of the country’s poorest regions.The army is fighting a decades-old communist insurgency separately, which has been weakened by battle setbacks, infighting and surrenders.
