Fresh fighting in Philippine south leaves 4 dead

MANILA, Oct 29 (Reuters) Four Muslim guerrillas were killed and a soldier was wounded in fresh fighting in the southern Philippines, an army spokesmen said today.

Lieutenant-Colonel Julieto Ando, a military spokesman, said soldiers were preparing breakfast when an undetermined number of Muslim rebels attacked an army detachment in Shariff Aguak on Mindanao island today.

''Only one soldier was wounded, but we believed the rebels suffered heavy losses,'' Ando told reporters. ''We found four rebel bodies near the scene of fighting.'' Eid Kabalu, spokesman of the largest Muslim rebel group in the south, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), accused soldiers of shelling the group's position with mortars at dawn.

''They are provoking our forces,'' Kabalu said. The rebels would protest the incident as a ceasefire violation. ''We did not start the conflict. We were just defending our positions.'' Kabalu said he was unaware of any report of casualties on either side.

In June, dozens of people were killed and hundreds of houses were burned in Shariff Aguak during 10 days of fighting between the MILF and local Muslim politicians.

Troops in the area stayed neutral and even mediated to end the conflict that threatened the three-year truce between the government and Islamic rebels talking peace to end nearly 40 years of Muslim rebellion in the south.

The negotiations, brokered by Malaysia since March 2001, broke down last month over the size and wealth of a proposed Muslim homeland in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country in Southeast Asia.

Manila's peace negotiators were expected to offer a fresh initiative by the end of October to restart talks after they failed in an earlier deadline on September 30.

REUTERS SP VV1334