(Updates figures, adds comments from navy chief) MANILA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Philippine security forces killed a suspected Muslim militant and arrested two others in a dawn raid east of Manila on Thursday, police said. The head of the navy told Reuters the operation might have thwarted possible attacks in Manila after marines and police found plastic explosives, bomb parts and grenades in a house in Rizal province about 30 km (20 miles) east of the capital. "Our informants tipped us off about the presence of suspected bombers in the area," Vice-Admiral Rogelio Calunsag said. "We may have foiled attacks in the capital." Five militants, believed to belong to a renegade faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), escaped from the house in Rizal. Police had earlier raided a house in the eastern part of Manila, where they arrested another suspected rebel. The MILF, the Philippines' largest Muslim separatist group, has a shaky ceasefire with the government. The two sides are trying to revive peace talks stalled since May 2006 due to differences over a proposed deal on territory in the south. MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told a local radio station that the man killed in the raid was not a member of their organisation. "We are focused on the peace talks. We are about to resume negotiations so why would we create trouble." The Philippines is a largely Catholic country but with a sizeable Muslim minority on its impoverished southern islands. Violence between the military and four Islamic separatist groups has killed more than 120,000 people since the early 1970s. Last week, at least six people were killed in fighting between MILF and government troops on the southern island of Mindanao.
