Militants have killed five Filipino soldiers and wounded 23 others in a major ambush by members of a notorious kidnap-for-ransom group, the Philippine military said Saturday.
The soldiers were searching for hostages taken by the Abu Sayyaf group when the gunmen attacked them on the southern Philippine island of Jolo on Friday, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana told reporters.
"The effort is part of our mission to rescue the remaining hostages," Besana said.
The Abu Sayyaf is a loose alliance of several hundred armed militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
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