3 killed in Zambo port shootout.

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Two maritime policemen and a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant were killed Friday in a firefight inside the busy port of Zambonga City in the southern Philippines, officials said.

Officials said a port security guard was also wounded in the gun battle that erupted around 6.30 a.m. after policemen stopped the man for a body inspection. They found in the man’s backpack a magazine for .45-caliber pistol.

“The man quickly pulled a pistol from under his shirt and shot the two policemen and one of our security guards. The assailant was later killed,” said Chief Inspector Francisco Clavecillas, the port police chief.

He said aside from the magazine, they also recovered a Qur’an with Arabic text in the man’s backpack.

“The man was well trained to handle his gun. He was quick and really trained to kill. He was a determined assassin and we suspect that he was a member of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group,” Clavecillas said, adding that the man did not have identification cards. “Investigations are still going on to determine his identity,” he said.

Muslim guerrillas fire on police; 1 killed, 3 wounded, 2 missing.

JOLO — Suspected Muslim guerrillas Tuesday opened fire on police on a southern Philippine island, killing one officer, wounding three and leaving two others missing, police said.

Police officer Ali Akmad, who was slightly wounded, said the attackers stopped him and his colleagues on a road to a village outside Maimbung town on Jolo island, about 940 kilometers (580 miles) south of Manila.

He said he had thought the attackers were soldiers manning a checkpoint.

One officer was killed, two others, in addition to Akmad, were hurt and two were missing in the attack, Akmad told reporters from a hospital.

The island is a stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group, notorious for ransom kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, including a February 2004 attack that gutted a ferry ship and killed 116 people in one of Southeast Asia’s worst terrorist attacks.