The MNLF gained foreign support from Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, which supplied arms and provided training for Moro youths.

A general cessation of hostilities between the government in Manila and the MILF was signed in July 1997, but this agreement was abolished in 2000 by the Philippine Army under the administration of President Joseph Estrada.

[9] Despite peace negotiations and the cease-fire agreement, the MILF attacked government troops in Maguindanao, resulting in at least twenty-three deaths in January 2005.

The combined armies of the MILF and Abu Sayyaf were involved in days of fighting, which necessitated government troops using heavy artillery to engage rebel forces.

[18] From June 28 to July 6, 2006, conflict between the MILF and armed civilian volunteers under Maguindanao provincial governor Andal Ampatuan who were supported by the Philippine Army had been reported.

[19] Talks between the MILF and the government collapsed in 2008 after a Supreme Court decision in Sema vs. COMELEC rejected a preliminary accord that would have expanded the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

[20] On August 4, 2008, the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued a temporary restraining order, preventing the government and the MILF from officially signing the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), which would conclude all dispute and begin formal talks that would lead to the drafting and eventual signing of a Final Comprehensive Compact between the two groups.

[21] The court accepted motions by the southern provincial governments that objected to the extended boundaries for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao envisioned in the peace deal.

[24] The YMPN said in a statement dated August 21, 2009: In these times of hardship, we hold hands as one, with our Christian and Islamic neighbours, in the name of peace, acceptance and justice.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines responded to the allegation by immediately deploying ten battalions composed of a total of 6,000 soldiers into Mindanao under the command of Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna.

[26] On October 14, 2008, the court conducted a series of divided votes declared "contrary to law and the Constitution" the MOA-AD of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and Moro Islamic Liberation Front Tripoli Agreement of Peace on 2001.

The furtive process by which the MOA-AD was designed and crafted runs contrary to and in excess of the legal authority and amounts to a whimsical, capricious, oppressive, arbitrary and despotic exercise thereof.

[33] Chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said that the government was cautiously optimistic for a final agreement soon following six days of talks on July 13, 2013.

The agreement would see government allowances for the MILF to have a 75 percent share of earnings from natural resources and metallic minerals in a proposed autonomous region.

A regional police force would be established, and the Philippine military would reduce the presence of troops and help disband private armies in the area.

[35] President Rodrigo Duterte signed the law, a key step to ending a Muslim rebellion in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines.

[37] Some former rebel fighters have joined the police and military to protect certain areas of the Bangsamoro region until an elected government is established in 2022.