{"id":35223,"date":"2017-06-19T10:56:20","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T10:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/philippines-to-halt-operations-against-communist\/"},"modified":"2017-06-19T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T10:56:14","slug":"philippines-to-halt-operations-against-communist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/philippines-to-halt-operations-against-communist\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippines to halt operations against communist rebels"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Truce allows government troops to focus on quelling a month-long siege by ISIL-linked fighters in Mindanao province.}<\/p>\n

The Philippine government has announced it would suspend offensives against communist fighters, allowing troops to focus on quelling a bloody siege by ISIL-linked fighters in the country’s south.<\/p>\n

Silvestre Bello III, chief government negotiator, said on Sunday that the government move is in response to a similar plan by the communist New People’s Army rebels.<\/p>\n

He did not specify when such a suspension of government offensives would take effect and under what terms.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Peace is still possible in Duterte’s Philippines<\/p>\n

In the last year the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has been engaged in an on-and-off truce with the communist rebels.<\/p>\n

Despite the latest peace overtures, Philippine troops killed five communist fighters in separate clashes in the south while the rebels stormed a police station in a central Philippine island of Leyte and seized a dozen assault rifles and pistols over the weekend, officials said.<\/p>\n

Three communist fighters were killed in Davao Oriental province and two others died in Compostela Valley in separate clashes with army troops on Saturday, military officials said.<\/p>\n

While in Leyte, about 50 communist rebels stormed a police station and seized 12 rifles and pistols, and other equipment, according to the police.<\/p>\n

The rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that they waged the assault to punish police officers, whom they accused of being involved in extortion, gambling and distribution of illegal drugs.<\/p>\n

{{Fighting two fronts in Mindanao}}<\/p>\n

While Duterte has pursued talks with the communist rebel, he has expressed outrage over continuing attacks.<\/p>\n

The rebels have also protested what they said were continuing military assaults on their rural strongholds.<\/p>\n

The accusations and other differences have hampered negotiations being brokered by Norway, causing a scheduled round of talks to be canceled in May.<\/p>\n

The communist rebels have been waging one of Asia’s longest-running armed rebellion, which has left tens of thousands dead.<\/p>\n

Separately, the government is also fighting Muslim armed fighters in the southern island of Mindanao.<\/p>\n

Thousands of troops and police have been deployed to end a 27-day siege by fighters aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in the southern city of Marawi.<\/p>\n

The siege in Marawi has forced Duterte to declare martial law in the southern island.<\/p>\n

The intense fighting has left at least 242 fighters, 56 soldiers and policemen and 26 civilians dead and turned the heartland of the Muslim-majority city into a battlefield, and displaced 300,000 people.<\/p>\n

The US military has deployed a spy plane and drones to help troops end the insurrection, which was started by an estimated 500 ISIL-fighters, including foreign operatives.<\/p>\n

The military said more than 100 fighters are holed up in the city, holding an unspecified number of civilian hostages.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/figure>\n

Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Truce allows government troops to focus on quelling a month-long siege by ISIL-linked fighters in Mindanao province.} The Philippine government has announced it would suspend offensives against communist fighters, allowing troops to focus on quelling a bloody siege by ISIL-linked fighters in the country’s south. Silvestre Bello III, chief government negotiator, said on Sunday that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35223"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35223"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}