Suspected Filipino Muslim separatist rebels blew up a bridge, using a homemade bomb, in southern Philippines Tuesday, a local military official said.

Lt Col. Jonathan Ponce, a local Army spokesman, told reporters that followers of Ameril Umbra Kato, a field commander of the country's largest rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), detonated a homemade bomb they planted at Lintokan bridge near the township of Datu Piang in Maguindanao province around 2:00 a.m. (0600 GMT).

"Some of the residents in the area also fled after the attackers burned their houses," he said, adding that the bridge is partially damaged and impassable to four-wheel vehicle.

Ponce said soldiers and policemen were sent to the area to check if the rebels also planted bombs on other bridges in the town.

Troops are hunting down Kato for leading a series of attacks in the region in August last year that left scores dead and hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced.

Peace talks between the government and the 11,800-member MILF collapsed anew in August 2008 after the two sides failed to sign an agreement on ancestral domain, prompting radical rebel commanders to launch deadly attacks on Christian communities in Mindanao.

(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2009)