Five government troops were wounded Monday when communist rebels attacked an army detachment in the southern Philippines, a regional police spokesman said. The fighting erupted when about 200 guerrillas raided an army outpost in Banaybanay town in Davao Oriental province, 990 kilometres south of Manila, Superintendent Querubin Manalang said. Manalang said one guerrilla was reported killed in the firefight but the body was carried off by his comrades as they fled. He added that during the raid the guerrillas seized one machine gun, six assault rifles and one two-way radio before retreating to the mountains. More troops have been dispatched to the area to pursue the rebels. Communist rebels have been fighting the government since the late 1960s, making the movement one of the longest-running leftist insurgencies in Asia.
