Philippine army, rebels resume search for priest

MANILA, June 22 (Reuters) Hundreds of Philippine soldiers and Muslim rebels have resumed joint efforts to locate and free an Italian Catholic priest held captive in the south of the country, a Marine general said today.

Major-General Benjamin Dolorfino said US-trained commandos backed by two battalions of soldiers and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas went on patrols to re-establish contact with Muslim gunmen holding Giancarlo Bossi.

Cooperation between the soldiers and rebels to free Bossi hit a snag on Wednesday because the MILF ordered its forces to stand down after a 2002 anti-crime agreement between the two sides expired.

The rebel group had been helping security forces target kidnap-for-ransom gangs in the south under the agreement.

Dolorfino told Reuters he received orders yesterday from the government's peace panel negotiating with the MILF to cooperate with the rebels.

''There's no more hindrance to work together to free Father Bossi,'' he said.

Bossi, a 59 year-old missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), was abducted on June 10 after saying mass near his parish on the southern island of Mindanao.

Dolorfino said he was confident the priest would be released within the next three to five days due to pressure from soldiers and the MILF rebels.

Mohaqher Iqbal, the MILF chief peace negotiator, said he had authorised his men to work closely with soldiers to free Bossi.

''This is a temporary arrangement,'' Iqbal told Reuters. ''We're doing this on humanitarian grounds. We have not formally extended the agreement creating the mechanism for anti-crime cooperation because it's usually done under a formal setting.'' The MILF has signed two other preliminary agreements with the government -- a ceasefire which has been holding since 2003 and a massive plan to rehabilitate and develop conflict areas in the Muslim south of the mainly Roman Catholic country.

Since 1997, the two sides had been talking to end nearly 40 years of rebellion that has killed more than 120,000 people and displaced 2 million, slowing down growth in the resource-rich Mindanao.

Reuters KK GC1149