MANILA (AFP) - – Three Al-Qaeda-linked militants suspected of being behind deadly bomb attacks in the southern Philippines were killed in a gunbattle with troops, the military said Saturday.
Two soldiers were also wounded in the firefight Friday when troops caught up with fleeing Abu Sayyaf extremists on Basilan island, said Lieutenant General Ben Dolorfino.
The gunmen are believed to be part of the Abu Sayyaf group that set off two bombs and fired on civilians and security forces in Basilan's capital on Tuesday in an attack that left 15 people dead, Dolorfino said.
Two rifles and a machinegun were recovered from the dead extremists, said Dolorfino, who is head of military forces in the southern Philippines.
Troops accompanied by sniffer dogs also discovered and safely detonated a bomb believed to have been left by the Abu Sayyaf in a creek on Basilan on Friday, officials said.
Security forces have imposed tight security on Basilan and surrounding areas following the Abu Sayyaf attacks, the worst such assault by the group in months.
The Abu Sayyaf is a small gang of Islamic militants on the US government's list of foreign terrorist organisations.
It was founded in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network to fight for an independent Muslim state in the south of the mainly Catholic nation, Philippine military intelligence officials say.
The most brutal of several armed Muslim groups in the south, the Abu Sayyaf is also blamed for the country's worst terrorist attacks, including a 2004 bombing of a ferry in Manila Bay that killed more than 100 people.
