Regional military spokesman Col Dickson Hermoso said Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement fighters assaulted the soldiers in two adjacent towns in Maguindanao province yesterday, prompting government forces to retaliate in fighting that also wounded three soldiers.
Hermoso said troops identified five of the rebel casualties but did not immediately provide other details.
The rebels broke off from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main rebel group which signed a new Muslim autonomy deal in the south with the Philippine government in March. The breakaway rebels opposed the peace talks, preferring to take up arms for a separate Muslim homeland in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.
Both sides are finalising draft legislation, which they hope Congress will approve that will allow them to set up the new autonomous region to try to wean poverty-wracked Muslim areas from decades of unrest and violence.