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| Southeast Asia |
| 3 militants killed in Philippines |
| 2009-10-16 |
| [Straits Times] THREE suspected Muslim militants were killed in a clash with the military on a Philippine island close to where two US soldiers were killed recently, the military said on Thursday. Five soldiers and one other gunman were wounded in the fighting on Jolo island in the southern Philippines on Wednesday, Marine Major Ramon David Hontiveros, the regional military spokesman, told reporters. He said the three slain gunmen were believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic militant group that has carried out many of the country's worst terrorist attacks. The Abu Sayyaf was blamed for setting off a roadside bomb late last month in Indanan, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) away from Wednesday's fighting, that killed two US troops and a Filipino soldier. Small groups of US military advisers are stationed on Jolo and elsewhere in the southern Philippines to train Filipino troops in how to combat the Abu Sayyaf. The Abu Sayyaf, set up in the 1990s allegedly with seed money from the Al-Qaeda network, has been fighting for an independent Muslim homeland on Jolo and other areas of the southern Philippines. |
| Posted by:Fred |