Manila stops offensive as Muslim envoys go south

MANILA, May 18 (Reuters) The Philippines suspended military offensives against several Muslim rebel groups for a week today as a high-level team from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) visited the troubled south, an army general said.

The OIC, a group of 57 Muslim states, sent a five-member delegation to the Philippines this week to review the progress of a 1996 peace deal between the government of the mainly Catholic country and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Insurgencies by four Muslim groups and communist rebels have killed more than 160,000 people and stunted development of the resource-rich south since the late 1960s.

Brigadier-General Alexander Aleo, the military commander on the southwestern island of Jolo, said offensives were put on hold for seven days as the Islamic envoys viewed how Muslim villages scarred by nearly 40 years of secessionist violence were faring.

The brief cessation also applied to Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent group with its stronghold on Jolo and links to al Qaeda. But Aleo said troops were ready to react if attacked.

''We're not out to spoil the OIC trip to the south,'' Aleo told reporters. ''We're suspending operations in response to a request from the MNLF. I want to make it clear that we're not after the MNLF -- our operations are directed against the Abu Sayyaf.'' Sayed Kassem el-Masry, an Egyptian diplomat and head of the OIC mission, said the delegates would meet local Muslim leaders to look at obstacles holding up full implementation of the peace agreement.

The MNLF says the government fulfilled the first part of the accord by absorbing 10,000 former rebels into the military and police but has yet to fully deliver economic assistance to families of 50,000 ex-guerrillas.

The government -- now trying to seal a peace deal with another Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front -- has blamed technical and financial issues for the delay.

The OIC mission today visited Muslim areas on the southern island of Mindanao before heading to Jolo by the weekend, listening to complaints from both sides.

The requests from Muslim leaders included freedom for MNLF founder Nur Misuari, who has been detained since 2002 while on trial over a failed rebellion on Jolo in late 2001.

The OIC, through Indonesia, brokered the September 1996 peace deal between Manila and the MNLF, which has had observer status in the club of Islamic states since 1974.

Aleo said the situation on Jolo had stabilised since January 2005 when 5,000 soldiers were sent to fight hundreds of Abu Sayyaf rebels and rogue MNLF members who ambushed an army convoy.

Dulmatin and Umar Patek, the two key suspects in the deadly Bali bombings in 2002, were believed to be hiding among the Abu Sayyaf on the remote island.

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