SUSPECTED Muslim rebels killed four rubber plantation workers and a militiaman yesterday in Sumisip, Basilan in the latest eruption of violence in Mindanao in days.

Also yesterday three soldiers died and three were wounded in an ambush in Sultan Naga Dimaporo in Lanao del Norte. The soldiers belonged to the military’s 5th Infantry Battalion.

The troops, headed by Lt. Col. Bagnun Gearlan, were heading to the nearby town of Malabang, Lanao del Sur, when they were ambushed around 11:15 a.m. along the highway in the village of Payong in Sultan Naga Dimaporo town.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the early morning ambush in Basilan, which came just days after Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels launched deadly attacks that left 27 government forces dead.

Eight other workers were wounded in the attack on their truck, authorities said.

"Five were killed in this morning's ambush," regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said.

The plantation workers killed were identified as Renato Aligay, Junrel Langugon, Delord Johnson, and Buenaventura Lugamay. Also killed was Fernando Tantalon, an off-duty militiaman; Cabangbang said the motive for the attack as well as those behind it were not immediately clear.

But he said MILF rebels were known to operate in the forested area where the ambush took place, and the attack could have been meant to divert military attention from an ongoing offensive against comrades responsible for earlier attacks.

He said reports from military intelligence operatives indicated the 40 gunmen who staged the attack could be members of an MILF unit led by a certain Hassan Asnawi.

The gunmen escaped into the jungle after a pro-government militia unit traveling with the plantation workers put up a fight, the military said.

The attack came four days after MILF rebels killed 19 special forces members who allegedly strayed into a rebel camp on Basilan in violation of a ceasefire Wednesday, in the biggest flare up of violence between the two sides in years.

The military said the soldiers were after a rogue MILF commander named Dan Laksaw Asnawi when last week's attack happened.

Asnawi in 2007 allegedly joined forces with members of the smaller Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group in a major clash with marines in 2007, in which 14 troopers were killed and beheaded.

He was later jailed but escaped from a Basilan jail in 2009.

It was not clear whether the two Asnawis were related or whether Sunday's ambush was linked to last week's attacks.

Four soldiers and four policemen were killed on Thursday in separate clashes elsewhere in Zamboanga Sibugay province.

MILF rebels fleeing government artillery attacks following the clashes briefly occupied an empty school in one town and stole cattle, but left the civilians unharmed, the military said.

President Benigno Aquino promised relatives of the slain soldiers that those behind the attacks would be hunted down, but rejected growing calls for the government to review its peace talks with the 12,000-member MILF.                                  

With a report from AFP