About 200-500 Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels cut off a main highway in the troubled south and raided up to five coastal towns in Lanao del Norte province early Monday, burning houses and shooting or hacking to death civilians and taking others captive. Many residents scampered for safety, jumping into small boats to escape.

Troops reacted quickly and flushed out the rebels with tanks and helicopter gunships under orders from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who issued a televised condemnation of the raids, calling them “sneaky and treacherous.”

The retreating rebels took several people hostage in Kolambugan town as human shields, said Brig. Gen. Antonio Supnet, head of an army brigade that drove away the rebels.

Officials said 23 civilians were killed in Kauswagan and in neighboring Kolambugan, including villagers who were taken hostage, a group of farmers and two bus passengers hit by rebel gunfire. An ambush killed at least three troops, including a lieutenant colonel, the highest-ranking officer to die in combat in three years, army commanders said.

Supnet said more than 20 houses were burned in Kauswagan alone and hundreds of displaced villagers were streaming into evacuation centers in nearby Iligan.

William Sechico, 14, from Kolambugan, said he and his five siblings and parents were asleep when their house came under fire.

“My father died,” he said. “We hid in the bushes at the back of our house until 1 p.m. today.”

TV footage showed mayhem in one smoldering village as residents ran for cover, jumping over the fences of their roadside houses. Burned-out vehicles littered the street.

Michael Enat, manager of Cosmopolitan funeral homes in Iligan, said an army truck brought the bodies of nine civilians from Kauswagan who had been shot and hacked. At least 7,000 villagers fled their homes, police said.

Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said the attack was carried out by a key commander, Abdullah Macapaar, also known as Bravo, without the knowledge of the group’s leadership.

Kabalu said the rebels were frustrated over the slow progress in peace talks but added their actions were “illegal and they were ordered by (rebel) leaders to vacate the areas they attacked.”

The escalation of fighting on Mindanao island came amid uncertainty over the fragile peace process after the Supreme Court — acting on a petition filed by Christian politicians wary of losing land and power — blocked a preliminary agreement with the rebels calling for an expanded Muslim autonomous region.

The agreement, which was supposed to be signed this month, calls for more than 700 new villages to be added to an existing autonomous region, subject to approval in a plebiscite next year.

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