World News

MANILA (AFP) - – Two US soldiers were killed in the southern Philippines Tuesday in the deadliest attack against American troops there since they began helping local forces stamp out Muslim extremists in 2001, officials said.
The blast that killed the two soldiers also claimed the life of a local Marine and left two other Filipino Marines seriously wounded, Philippine military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said in Manila.
The explosion struck the troops as they were riding a Humvee vehicle on the outskirts of a town on Jolo island, where the Muslim militant Abu Sayyaf group is active, according to Brawner.
Suspected Abu Sayyaf members set off an improvised bomb near a police station at another Jolo village about 20 kilometres (12 miles) away shortly before the explosion, local police said.
No one was injured in that incident.
Brawner did not directly blame the Abu Sayyaf, saying an investigation was still under way.
He also insisted the US soldiers were doing development work, and were not fighting the Abu Sayyaf.
"These US servicemen... were non-combatants. They were there to supervise the developmental projects in the area when they were attacked," he told reporters.
"There was no firefight."
The US military said it believed the Americans were killed by an improvised explosive, and not a landmine, as the Philippine military had first said, which would mean they were targeted for attack, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters in Washington.
"We feel the best way to describe this is as an improvised explosive device," said Whitman.
It was the first time the 600-strong US contingent in the Philippines had been targeted by an improvised explosive, he said, a frequent tactic used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A US embassy statement said the soldiers were on a supply run for a school construction project when the explosion took place.
"They lost their lives serving others and we will always be grateful for their contributions to improve the quality of life on Jolo," US ambassador Kristie Kenney said in the statement.
The Philippine foreign affairs department hailed the US soldiers, saying their activities on Jolo "assisting" the Philippine military were "important to the Filipino people".
The Abu Sayyaf was established in the early 1990s, allegedly with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, to fight for a Muslim state in the south of this mainly Roman Catholic nation.
It has kidnapped dozens of foreign aid workers, missionaries and tourists and was blamed for the country's worst terrorist strike, the bombing of a ferry in 2004 that killed more than 100 people.
US soldiers first arrived in the southern Philippines in December 2001 as part of then US president George W. Bush's "war on terror".
However under an agreement between the two nations, the US forces were allowed only to advise and train the Philippine soldiers and were banned from engaging in combat operations.
A few hundred US soldiers are believed to be in the southern Philippines at any one time, and attacks against them have been rare compared with in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However one US soldier was killed and another seriously wounded when a bomb, believed to have been planted by the Abu Sayyaf, went off in a bar in the southern port city of Zamboanga in October 2002.
And just two weeks ago, a small bomb was hurled at a wharf in Jolo where US troops were unloading supplies. No one was injured in the incident.
The Abu Sayyaf is believed to have only a few hundred active militants and many of its key leaders have been killed in recent years.
But, with strong family ties in the southern Philippines, it remains a strong opponent for security forces.
Earlier this month, Philippine soldiers overran an Abu Sayyaf camp on Jolo, resulting in the deaths of 24 guerrillas and eight Filipino soldiers.
On the nearby island of Basilan last month, Abu Sayyaf militants killed 23 Philippine soldiers and lost 20 of their own when security forces raided one of their camps.