Posted on 03/04/2004 3:02:38 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
MANILA : A 13-year-old girl and two communist guerrillas have been killed following a gunbattle with Philippine troops, the military said.
Four others were wounded in the hour-long firefight, triggered when some 100 New Peoples Army (NPA) guerrillas attacked an army detachment near the mining town of Monkayo in the southern island of Mindanao.
High school student Hannah Joy Villaber was slain in the crossfire while two rebels were shot dead. A soldier and three other civilians were also wounded, a military report said.
Local army commander Colonel Maximo Caro said the NPA was stepping up its attacks ahead of its anniversary on March 29. "We condemn this dastardly act," he told reporters.
The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging more than three decades of Maoist insurgency.
The government has resumed formal peace talks with the insurgents, but has not signed a ceasefire with them.
NPA spokesman Gregorio Rosal meanwhile said rebel forces were also holding two soldiers as "prisoners of war" following a rebel ambush in the eastern Bicol region earlier this week.
Rosal demanded that the government cease military operations in the area and negotiate for the release of army lieutenant Boots Sedelino and one of his men.
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