ZAMBOANGA: Three Philippine marines were killed and 10 wounded on Sunday in a clash with al Qaeda-linked militants who hold several foreign hostages, the military said.

The troops from the Marine Battalion Landing Team 6 were deployed to a remote village on the southern island of Jolo province to check intelligence reports about the presence there of Abu Sayyaf gunmen and their captives.

"The troops conducted a combat patrol to verify the reported presence of the kidnap victims in the area when they caught up with the Abu Sayyaf group, resulting in the encounter," said regional military spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang.

He said that three were killed and military helicopters evacuated the 10 injured.

The Marines reported having killed two Abu Sayyaf militants, though none of the hostages were sighted or recovered.

The Abu Sayyaf, whose followers number in the low hundreds, is blamed for the country's worst terrorist attacks including a ferry bombing in 2004 that killed more than 100.

The group is also behind a series of high-profile kidnappings of foreign and local tourists as well as businessmen.

It is on the US government's list of foreign terrorist organizations, and a number of American advisers have been rotating in the southern Philippines for the past decade helping local counterparts to try to crush the group.

A number of foreign hostages are believed held by the Abu Sayyaf in its Jolo stronghold or elsewhere, including two European bird-watchers seized in February and an Australian abducted last December.