Twenty-seven people were killed when gunmen backing renegade Muslim leader Nur Misuari clashed Tuesday with the military and took about 50 mostly Christian hostages in the southern Philippines.
The rebels warned they would kill their civilian captives, including children, after the military launched air and ground attacks to drive them out from a government complex they had occupied for about a week.
Lieutenant Colonel Danilo Servando, spokesman for the military southern command, said the civilians were seized as "human shields to prevent the military operation" against the heavily armed men.
The government sent an official from a Muslim self-rule area to negotiate with the leader of the hostage-takers, who marched with their captives to a suburban park.
"We told them that they should release the hostages and they can leave without any bloodshed," the official, Abraham Iribani, told ABS-CBN television.
Among the dead were 25 Misuari followers, a soldier and a civilian, said military spokesman Brigadier General Edilberto Adan.
Fifteen other people were wounded.
The siege began before dawn Tuesday when the armed men launched mortar attacks and fired machine guns from the Cabatangan hilltop complex, overlooking the airport.
All flights to the bustling southern city were cancelled, schools suspended classes and most business outlets, including banks, were closed.
Shells hit the the Edwin Andrews Air Force base and buildings in the heart of Zamboanga, including a hotel.
Misuari, a former guerilla leader who became governor of a Muslim self-rule area in the south, is being detained in Malaysia where he fled after leading a bloody revolt that left more than 100 people dead last week.
He staged the revolt after President Gloria Arroyo backed a rival faction within his Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in polls for the post of governor of the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Relatively-peaceful polls were conducted Monday but the uneasy calm was shattered early Tuesday when residents of Zamboanga were awakened by gunshots and explosions.
Misuari's men, hooded and armed with grenade launchers and M-16 rifles, had planned the attacks well, seizing about 50 residents near the complex before opening fire.
But military planes bombarded their positions while ground troops advanced to quell the rebels, some of whom escaped to a nearby village.
By Tuesday afternoon , the gunmen had freed 11 hostages -- two men and nine children.
The other captives were used as human shields as the gunmen left to join another armed group in Pasonanca village five kilometres (three miles) away.
They put the women and children in front with their hands bound as they walked out of the complex, forcing troops, backed by armoured personnel carriers, to retreat.
Radio reports said Misuari followers in Pasonanca, led by his nephew Julhambri Misuari, had also taken an undetermined number of hostages but this could not be independently confirmed.
A Red Cross worker allowed to check on the captives quoted a rebel commander as telling him: "Anything can happen, if worse comes to worst, we will execute the hostages."
Red Cross regional director Alan Cajucom said the volunteer reported that the rebels told him "they are willing to die and sacrifice their hostages".
A local broadcast journalist Jose Marie Bue, who was among the hostages with his pregnant wife and three children, appealed to Arroyo "to please settle this conflict through negotiations".
Bue spoke to AFP when he was sent out to buy food for the gunmen.
Up to 200 Misuari followers had been holed up in Cabatangan since last week although the military said Monday that only 60 were left after some surrendered following Misuari's failed revolt.
Misuari is awaiting deportation to be tried on charges of rebellion, which carries a 20-year jail term – Philippines (AFP)
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