Defense, military chiefs fly to site of deadly clashes

MANILA (AP) - The defense secretary and top military generals flew to the volatile south Sunday, meeting commanders set to launch a new offensive against Muslim insurgents who killed 25 soldiers in a day of fighting last week.

Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf gunmen and guerrillas from the bigger Moro National Liberation Front inflicted those losses -- the largest single-day government troop loss in recent years ---- in a road ambush and ensuing gunbattle on southern Jolo island Thursday. At least 27 insurgents also died.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, already enraged by Muslim insurgents' beheading of 10 marines on nearby Basilan island last month, took the unprecedented step of temporarily moving the army headquarters from Manila to southern Zamboanga city Saturday.

The move brings the army's commander, Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino, to the front lines of looming offensives on Jolo and Basilan.

The heavy losses and beheadings have rattled the military and shattered months of relative tranquility on both predominantly Muslim islands, where the Abu Sayyaf, the MNLF and the country's largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, have waged protracted guerrilla-style insurrections for years.

Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, who assumed his post Wednesday, flew to Jolo with military chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon and Tolentino, meeting commanders behind closed doors in a heavily fortified military camp to assess last week's clashes and to brace troops for a new battle against Muslim insurgents, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro.