Three militants killed in Philippines-military

ZAMBOANGA – Philippine soldiers killed three members of an Al-Qaeda-linked Muslim extremist group behind the slaying and mutilation of seven Marines barely two weeks ago, officers said on Monday.

Troops clashed with about 30 members of the Abu Sayyaf on the southern island of Jolo on Sunday in the latest operation against the feared group, Brigadier General Romeo Tanalgo said.

Tanalgo, head of a regional security group, said the clash involved a group of Abu Sayyaf gunmen that killed seven Marines, beheading two, on Jolo on July 28 in a shocking setback for the armed forces.

The body of one Abu Sayyaf member was recovered while military informants reported that two more had been killed and carried off by their comrades, the general said, adding that a soldier had been wounded as well.

“This operation has not ceased, it is ongoing,” he told reporters in the southern city of Zamboanga.

Deputy military chief Major General Jose Mabanta said in Manila that the armed forces leadership was going to Zamboanga soon to forge plans to defeat the Abu Sayyaf following the killing of the seven Marines.

“We’ll have to sit down and discuss and I’ll see what really happened on the ground and we’ll make the appropriate adjustments,” he told reporters.

The Abu Sayyaf, a small gang of self-styled Islamist militants founded in the 1990s with seed money from the Al-Qaeda network, is blamed for the country’s worst terrorist attacks.

They include beheadings of a US tourist kidnapped in 2001 and many other Filipino hostages, along with the bombing of a passenger ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that killed more than 100 people.