Troops rescued a soldier and recovered the bodies of four others killed in a jungle ambush by communist guerrillas, officials said Monday. At least 300 soldiers were deployed by helicopters and trucks near Presentacion township in Camarines Sur province, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of Manila, to hunt down about 40 New People's Army rebels behind the deadly attacks over the weekend, regional spokesman Maj. Harold Cabunoc said. The country's Marxist insurgency, one of Asia's longest, has continued to rage despite a deadline by outgoing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to crush it by the end of her term on June 30. The rebels initially shot dead one of several soldiers guarding a government road project on Saturday. Twelve soldiers searching for the attackers were ambushed later in the day leaving four dead, Cabunoc said. Their bodies were retrieved by troops the next day. A soldier who hid during the attack was rescued after informing his commander of his location by text messages, he said. The rest of the soldiers, three of them wounded by grenades and rifle fire, managed to return to camp. “They fought the rebels but ran out of ammunition. They got scattered in the dark and couldn't see the enemies so they were forced to retreat,” Cabunoc said. In a separate incident Saturday, a soldier was killed and seven others were wounded by a land-mine blast on the outskirts of southern Davao city, regional military spokesman Capt. Emmanuel Garcia said. Communist guerrillas apparently planted mines to block the advance of government troops that they had fought twice earlier Saturday, Garcia said. The military says the rebels' ranks have thinned to about 4,000 from more than 25,000 in the mid-1980s because of battle setbacks, surrenders and factionalism. Peace talks between the rebels and the government brokered by Norway collapsed in 2004 after the rebels accused Arroyo's administration of instigating their inclusion on US and European terrorist blacklists.
