Philippine leader warns of new military offensives

MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned Sunday that the military is ready to respond with air strikes and new offensives if communist rebels launch attacks after both sides lifted separate cease-fires and peace talks were scrapped.

Duterte, speaking at a news conference, called the rebels “terrorists” as months of steady progress in talks brokered by Norway rapidly turned hostile after New People’s Army rebels killed six soldiers and kidnapped two others in fresh violence that enraged the president.

Duterte lifted the government’s 6-month-old cease-fire with the rebels Friday and ordered troops to prepare for new fighting after the guerrillas abandoned their truce two days earlier and killed the six soldiers.

Duterte said several rebel leaders who were temporarily freed to join the peace talks in Europe should immediately return to the Philippines and go back to prison, warning that he would cancel their passports and order them to be arrested.

Duterte prohibited the 170,000-strong national police and the National Bureau of Investigation, another key law enforcement agency, from enforcing his campaign amid an extortion scandal that was sparked by the killing of a South Korean businessman by police officers involved in the fight against drugs.