MANILA, Philippines — Four gunmen have been killed on a Philippine tourist island as government forces pursue remnants of an Islamic militant group behind a foiled mass kidnapping attempt there, authorities said Sunday.
The government said the dead suspects were stragglers from a boatload of southern Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf gunmen who sailed to the central island of Bohol early this month as part of a plot to kidnap tourists.
The raid had signalled an escalation of the kidnapping threat from the Abu Sayyaf, who are based on remote islands and also blamed for beheadings and deadly bombings.
"Terrorism has no place in the Visayas (central) region," said a joint military and police statement announcing the death of four of the suspected kidnappers in Bohol on Saturday.
Six other Abu Sayyaf members had been killed in earlier clashes on the island on April 11, when three soldiers and a policeman were also slain, the authorities said.
The military said they had been pursuing up to seven of the remaining gunmen.
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