MANILA - ALMOST 100 Muslim separatist guerrillas have been killed in two weeks of heavy fighting in the southern Philippines, the military said on Monday.

'We have recovered about 54 to 56 bodies,' said regional army chief Colonel Medardo Geslani. He said the other fatalities were spotted by residents being carried away by their comrades, putting the rebel casualties at 96.

'On the military side, we have only one dead from an IED (improvised explosive device) with seven more who were slightly wounded.' Col Geslani, who commands the forces engaged in combat with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf) guerrillas, said fighting began on June 4 in the southern province of Maguindanao in the island of Mindanao.

He said several Milf training camps had since been overrun, including one where improvised bombs were being manufactured.

The 12,000-strong Milf has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao since 1978. It broke a five-year ceasefire with Manila in 2008, after a court outlawed a proposed agreement with Manila giving the rebels virtual control over a large areas in the south.

Milf fighters then pillaged entire villages and towns, displacing more than half million people in the ensuing violence. Most of those displaced have since returned to their homes although tens of thousands are still in evacuation camps.

The colonel said the assault on the Milf would continue.

'We are in the process of methodically defeating them, of methodically destroying them. We attack them where they are, wherever they are,' Col Geslani said on Monday. -- AFP