ZAMBOANGA CITY: Communist rebels have owned up to deadly attacks on police and military targets in the southern Philippines that killed at least a dozen people.

Dencio Madrigal, a spokesman for the New People’s Army (NPA)-Valentine Palamine Command, said the attacks on a police base and military forces in Davao del Sur’s Matanao town was a punishment for their “reign of terror” over indigenous tribes and other communities opposing mining operations in the province.