COTABATO CITY—Fierce fighting broke out and a major highway was closed to traffic on Wednesday when about 100 Moro rebels attacked an Army camp in North Cotabato, a military official said.

Lt. Col. Domingo Gobway, 7^th Infantry Battalion commander, said more than a hundred rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked at about 4:30 p.m. the battalion’s detachment on the national highway in Nalapaan, a barangay at the border of Pikit and Aleosan towns.

Gobway said the firefight lasted for 30 minutes before the rebels under Ameril Ombra Kato, a field commander of MILF responsible for the death of 60 civilians in a deadly rampage condemned by international aid agencies last year, withdrew.

“Our soldiers managed to return fire and no one from them was hurt. We used howitzers to drive them away,” Gobway said.

The military official closed the national highway in Pikit for the safety of travelers while the fighting was ongoing.

“We will know tomorrow [Friday] after the clearing operation if there are rebels killed in our artillery assault,” Gobway said.

Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu admitted that MILF guerrillas were involved in the latest clashes but said the front’s leadership has yet to investigate how the fighting started.

“We have active fighters in the area and we are checking who started the fight,” Kabalu said.

Kato and Abdullah Macapaar led deadly attacks last year, killing 60 civilians, following the aborted signing of a peace deal that would give the rebels their own homeland in the south.

Meanwhile, New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas on Wednesday killed a barangay chairman and two soldiers in an ambush in Compostela Valley.

Capt. Rosa Maria Cristina Manuel, Army’s 10th Infantry Aguila Division public-affairs officer, said the ambush took place at about 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday in barangay Banlag, Monkayo town.

Manuel identified the victims as barangay Banlag chairman Juan Bacharo, Sgt. Wendell Salva and Cpl. Pancrasio Catubig.

The victims where ambushed while they were doing coordination work for development projects in the hinterlands of Compostela Valley.

Manuel said the victims were aboard a motorcycle when they were waylaid by at least 10 NPA guerrillas.

The two soldiers were in civilian clothes and unarmed when ambushed, Manuel said.

“The soldiers and the barangay chairman were about to meet other barangay officials in relation to the development projects that will be implemented in the said place [barangay Banlag] when the incident happened,” Manuel said.

Maj. Gen. Reynaldo Mapagu, 10th ID commander, condemned the killing of the village official and two soldiers, who, he said “were only trying to help the people in the countryside.”

“We cannot tolerate these kind of individuals [NPA guerrillas] who victimize civilians and take our country hostage by destroying development projects and killing innocent people who are trying to uplift the living of the people in the countryside,” Mapagu said.

“They [NPAs] do not distinguish between armed and unarmed individuals. They repeatedly violated the principles of human rights and the international humanitarian law,” Mapagu added. 

Two weeks ago communist rebels burned three electric transmission towers in Banaybanay, Davao Oriental, that resulted in a province-wide power outage, and took hostage the passengers of a bus and used them as human shields against pursuing government troops, Mapagu added. (With B. Garcia Jr.)