Four gunmen killed in Philippines

MANILA: Four gunmen have been killed on a Philippine tourist island as President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the military on Sunday to kill remnants of an Islamic militant group behind a foiled mass kidnapping attempt there.

Authorities said the dead suspects and three others on the run were stragglers from a boatload of southern Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf gunmen who sailed to the central island of Bohol 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, prompting Duterte to vow deadly retribution.

"I told the military: Do not sleep. Find them. Kill them. I want them dead. Do not give them to me alive," Duterte said about the fresh fighting in Bohol.

"They are animals but if you want me to be an animal, I am used to that. We are the same. I can dish out more than what you can," he told people attending a public sports event.

Six other Abu Sayyaf members had been killed in clashes on the island on April 11, when three soldiers and a policeman were also slain, authorities said.