ZAMBOANGA CITY ? The first bursts of gunfire thundered through the hills at 3:47 a.m. on Wednesday. By nightfall, the close-quarter, face-to-face combat was still raging, after Marine reinforcements fell into an ambush.

After the last shots had been fired, 23 soldiers?including two junior officers?lay dead, with 22 others wounded. At least 21 Abu Sayyaf bandits were also dead.

?It was a slugfest,? Maj. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, Western Mindanao Command chief, said of the fierce gun battle on Basilan Island.

For the Armed Forces, which ordered the offensive on the Abu Sayyaf hideout, the marathon fighting achieved a strategic objective?the capture of a hilltop Abu Sayyaf training camp that the bandits had been using to make bombs.

But the military paid a steep price: It suffered its worst loss ever in a single engagement with the Abu Sayyaf, a check with Inquirer archives showed.

Eighteen of the soldiers killed belonged to a Marine company that tried to help their beleaguered comrades but were ambushed, surviving soldiers said.

Some of the wounded soldiers said what puzzled them was that the Abu Sayyaf seemed to have known in advance the government troops? movements, including the 8 a.m. arrival of reinforcements from the 67th Marine Raider Company.

The Army identified the two junior officers killed as First Lt. Chester Barela of the Philippine Military Academy Class 2004 and First Lt. Del John Evangelista of PMA Class 2006.

Twenty of the slain soldiers belonged to the Marines, while the rest were from the Army. Among those also killed was Army Cpl. Renato Dindin.

?I was really wondering why they knew about our movements,? Private First Class Randy Liboon said in Filipino during an interview at the hospital inside the Zamboanga regional command headquarters. ?If we had lost our nerve, for sure we would all be goners.?

Liboon indicated the bandits were waiting as the soldiers crept forward.

?Enemy was waiting?

Liboon, of the 4th Scout Ranger Company, said his company was the first to arrive in the target area: The bandits? camp in Sitio Kurrelem in the village of Silangkom.

?We thought the enemy was only few. We were one company (about 100 soldiers) and we had complete supplies for three days. But when we arrived at the target area, the enemy was already in position. Hayun, bakbakan na agad (That?s it, there was immediate fighting),? Liboon said.

?It was face-to-face fighting, then running and chasing, until they ran into our other unit (Light Reaction Company),? Liboon said.

Two in Liboon?s group were killed?a junior officer and a radioman.

?It was the most difficult and the most exhausting gun battle I had ever encountered in my whole life,? 25-year-old Private First Class Joel Alano, a member of the elite unit Light Reaction Company, told the Inquirer.

Alano, a native of La Union, was hit by shrapnel on his back.

?All throughout the day until night, there was no letup in the fighting,? Alano said, breathing heavily as he lay on his hospital bed. ?We were getting hungry and weak. Then our reinforcements were ambushed.?

?As the fighting went on, they were increasing in number. At first, they seemed like they were about 50. But before nightfall, they have grown to about 200,? Alano said.

Staff Sergeant Garry Tolentino also did not expect the fighting would last until nighttime.

?We thought the fighting would only last for a short while because we had reinforcements. As it turned out, our support was hit really hard,? Tolentino said, referring to the 67th Marine Raider Company.

Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Arnulfo Burgos Jr. estimated between 30 and 40 Abu Sayyaf men were killed in the fighting.

Barela, a member of the 4th Scout Ranger Company, and Evangelista, of the 3rd Light Reaction Company, were among the first soldiers to enter the Abu Sayyaf lair, Armed Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr. told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo.

?It was still dark when the firefight began. The two officers were equipped with night vision goggles so they were in that group who first launched the operation,? Brawner said. He said soldiers fought the Abu Sayyaf at a very close range.

The first clash initially involved 50 Abu Sayyaf bandits, he said. A bigger clash occurred two hours later at around 5:30 a.m. and lasted seven hours with at least 300 soldiers fighting 150 Abu Sayyaf bandits.

Sporadic firefighting went on until Wednesday evening in adjacent villages as the Abu Sayyaf clashed with the military?s blocking forces, Brawner said.

?Significant victory?

The camp which the soldiers overran was where Abu Sayyaf members were being trained in bomb-making.

Dolorfino said the slain soldiers had made ?their supreme sacrifice to protect our people.?

Dolorfino said the first wave of clashes involved troops from the Special Operations Command (Scout Rangers), the 61st Marine Company, Force Recon Battalion, the Special Operations Platoon 10 and the Marine Battalion Landing Team 10.

The second wave involved soldiers from the 67th Marine Raider Company, the Force Recon Battalion and the police Special Action Force.

Dolorfino claimed that government achieved a ?significant victory.?

?We have also recovered a total of 21 enemy, body count, and 17 high-powered firearms,? Dolorfino told reporters in Zamboanga.

He said two Abu Sayyaf commanders, Muttong Indama and Asid Sali, were among those killed.

Rear Admiral Alexander Pama, commander of the Naval Forces Western Mindanao and chief of Task Force Trillium in charge of the offensive in Basilan, said: ?We have taken their bomb manufacturing site where they assemble and make improvised explosive devices.?

Pama said the camp was also where the group brought their kidnap victims.

?This is a big blow to their capability, especially to launch bombings, because we have deprived them of improvised explosive devices,? Brawner said.

He added: ?However, we are not yet certain that they will not launch other attacks later on.?

Brawner said Wednesday?s offensive ?was a deliberate operation launched by the military targeting this camp, which is the heart of the Abu Sayyaf activities.?

Director Felizardo Serapio Jr., chief of the Western Mindanao Directorate for Integrated Police Operations (DIPO), said the explosive devices and bomb materials recovered from the camp had the ?trademark? of suspected bomber Khair Mundos, who had escaped from a General Santos City jail.

?We presume he was there to train more bombers as indicated by the volumes of (explosives) recovered in the training camp,? Serapio said.

Eid Kabalu, Moro Islamic Liberation Front vice chair for military affairs, said 10 MILF men were among those killed in the clashes. He claimed soldiers entered an MILF territory, resulting in the encounter.

Kabalu claimed only two Abu Sayyaf men were killed in the daylong encounter, disputing the military tally.

Dolorfino said the military had prior coordination with the MILF.

No part-time Abu

?We sought the help of the MILF,? he said, adding that the MILF men reported killed ?fought alongside the Abu Sayyaf.?

?We considered them Abu Sayyaf bandits. There is no such thing as part-time (Abu Sayyaf), part-time MILF,? Dolorfino said.

Military officials could not remember suffering as heavy a loss as Wednesday?s since the carnage on July 20, 2007, when 14 Marines were killed?10 of them beheaded?during a fruitless rescue operation for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi.

Brawner said: ?We are saddened by our loss ... but it is an accepted fact that part of our duties would entail risk of being killed in action. Death is a natural consequence of such operation.? With reports from AP and Reuters