Friday, June 05, 2009 MANILA: Soldiers killed 13 Muslim rebels and wounded dozens in heavy fighting in the southern Philippines on Friday, an army spokesman said, and thwarted a plot by the guerrillas to attack a farming village.Fighting across oil and gas-rich marshlands and nearby hills on the southern island of Mindanao has escalated in the last six weeks and displaced more than 50,000 families, pushing back prospects for the resumption of peace talks stalled since August 2008. Five soldiers were also wounded when troops clashed for two hours with Muslim guerrillas from rogue factions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) near Guindulungan town in Maguindanao province.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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