Philippine rebels stop search for Italian priest

MANILA, July 3 (Reuters) Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines have stopped searching for an Italian priest kidnapped at gunpoint nearly a month ago, setting back efforts to free him.

A spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said today that hundreds of guerrillas had been ordered to disengage and return to their bases on the southern island of Mindanao, to prevent any ''mis-encounters'' with Philippine troops.

''We're just letting the military do their job,'' Eid Kabalu told Reuters by telephone from his hideout in the south.

''They're the authority and we're only trying to help them. But, we could send back our forces if the government would ask us for help again.'' Kabalu said some MILF field commanders were uncomfortable searching for Giancarlo Bossi, a 59 year-old Milan-born Catholic missionary, without any formal agreement with the government to carry out anti-crime operations.

But another rebel source said the MILF was worried it might be dragged into a brewing controversy among senior army generals over the exact location of the gunmen holding Bossi, snatched on June 10 after saying mass in the southern province of Zamboanga Sibugay.

''We're also a bit confused,'' the MILF field commander told Reuters.

''One general said Bossi was being held in Zamboanga Sibugay but another believed the priest was in an area near the Lanao provinces.

Our own credibility was also questioned.'' Nearly a month after Bossi was kidnapped near his church, gunmen holding him have yet to contact the priest's superiors or demand a ransom.

The military suspects gunmen belonging to a rogue faction of the MILF abducted Bossi but it has not confirmed who the captors are or whether the priest is still alive.

Since 1997, the government and the MILF have been talking to end nearly 40 years of rebellion which have killed more than 120,000 people and displaced two million, slowing down growth in resource-rich Mindanao.

REUTERS GL PM1414