[Straits Times] A PRISON guard was killed and two others were wounded on Thursday during an abortive raid by Muslim separatists to spring rebels from a jail in the southern Philippines, the military said. About 50 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) gunmen laid siege to the provincial jail near the city of Kidapawan on Mindanao island before dawn, but the attack was repulsed, said army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Ponce.One jail guard was killed and two others were wounded as police and military units mounted a counter-attack, he told reporters.
Ponce said that the attempt by the rebels to spring militants trained in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices showed that the MILF planned to increase its bombing campaign in central Mindanao.
President Gloria Arroyo suspended peace talks with the 12,000-member MILF last year after the Supreme Court struck down a draft peace agreement that would have given the Islamic minority control over large areas of Mindanao.
The court ruling triggered a series of MILF raids on Christian settler communities that left scores of civilians dead and displaced more than half a million others across the island, according to international aid agencies.