DAVAO CITY, the Philippines, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Local officials have ordered the halting of classes in at least two towns in the southern Philippines as government troops continued hunting down Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) following an attack early on Wednesday.
Philippine authorities said dozens of armed BIFF members, a breakaway group from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), attacked Pigcawayan town in Mindanao's North Cotabato province around 5 a.m. local time on Wednesday.
The armed men also broke into a school in the adjacent village of Simsiman, and fighting erupted as soldiers and police responded to drive out the gunmen numbering over one hundred, officials have said.
Classes in schools in Pigcawayan and neighboring town of Midsayap have been suspended. Romeo Arana, mayor of Midsayap, some 30 kilometers away from Pigcawayan, said class suspension was prompted by sightings of BIFF gunmen in some parts of his town.
Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla Jr. told a press briefing in Presidential Palace that government troops are conducting pursuit operations against the rebels.
"It's already resolved," Padilla said. "They've withdrawn, they are no longer there. The school area is again safe. The troops are in pursuit mode."
Abu Misry Mama, the spokesperson of the BIFF, told a local radio their fighters were involved in the attack and that they were holding civilians.
Captain Arvin Encinas, the regional army spokesperson, said at least five civilians were believed taken hostage and used as human shields by the insurgents. But local police said 15 people from three families were held hostage by BIFF gunmen.
Authorities said no one from government forces was hurt in the fighting and that there was no word yet as to the whereabouts and condition of the hostages.
Some BIFF fighters were believed to have slipped to Marawi City, some 300 kilometers from its base in the marshland areas of central Mindanao, and joined other radical groups in the fight against security forces.
The firefight broke out as government troops continued to battle with the remnants of Islamic militants allied with Islamic State (IS) in Marawi City, also in the southern Philippines.
The Marawi skirmishes, which have resulted in nearly 400 people killed and over 200,000 displaced, have been ongoing since the militants overran the city in Lanao del Sur on May 23 in a bid to establish an IS caliphate in the Mindanao region.
