Unidentified gunmen ambushed a group of Army soldiers, killing at least three troopers in Lamitan City in Basilan, authorities reported on Sunday.

The three were members of the Army’s intelligence unit on the southern island of Basilan and had left their barracks to buy food when Abu Sayyaf gunmen attacked them Saturday, Captain Alberto Caber said.

“They were aboard a motorcycle when attacked from behind by men also riding motorcycles,” Caber told reporters.

Caber blamed the Abu Sayyaf for the attack, saying it could be trying to goad the military into attacks on the eve of the expected signing of a peace agreement with another Muslim group.

“This is the work of the Abu Sayyaf to spoil the signing” of the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Manila on Monday, he said.

The 12,000-strong MILF is to sign a “framework agreement” with the government laying down the blueprint for the creation of an autonomous region by 2016.

Caber said the Abu Sayyaf apparently feared that once the pact is signed, the MILF would actively help the military hunt them down in the jungles of Basilan.

The Abu Sayyaf is blamed for the country’s worst terrorist attacks, including a 2004 ferry bombing that killed over 100 in Manila Bay, as well as kidnappings of foreign tourists and missionaries over the past decade.

WITH A REPORT FROM AL JACINTO