COTABATO, the Philippines, Apr 25, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines stormed a military headquarters Friday night by firing rockets and automatic rifles but no one was hurt in the attack, a military spokesman said Saturday.
Around 20 rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest rebel group, started to attack the headquarters of the Army's 46th Infantry Battalion in the village of Midtimbang in Maguindanao province shortly after 10:00 p.m. ( 1400 GMT), local Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce said.
"Our men managed to return fire. There was a ten-minute sporadic firefight before the enemy withdrew. We have no casualties," Ponce told Xinhua by phone.
The Army official said they doubled their pressure against Moro rebels in a bid to flush them out as he bared the rebels' plan to carry out attacks against civilians and government troops.
Six of eight bodies of MILF have been recovered by soldiers in the town of Mamasapano following their week-long artillery and ground attacks against Ameril Umbra Kato, a field commander with 283,949 -U.S.-dollar-bounties for his arrest.
Kato led a series of attacks in the region on August last year that left scores dead and hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced.
Ponce said the clearing operation is a proactive action to the series of attacks perpetrated by Kato's followers.
"They were regrouping in areas of North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces and it resulted to series of armed confrontation," Ponce said.
Eid Kabalu, civil military affairs chief of the MILF, however blamed the military for the renewed hostilities in the region.
Kabalu said the military set on fire 10 houses of civilians in Mamasapano town and killed two civilians, an accusation denied by the military.
Peace talks between the government and the 11,800-member MILF collapsed in August 2008 after the two sides failed to sign an agreement on ancestral domain, prompting other rebel commanders, including Kato, to launch deadly attacks on Christian communities in Mindanao.