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Manila. Philippine troops battled Muslim extremists on a remote southern island on Friday where a day earlier three of Southeast Asia’s top terror suspects were killed in a US-backed air strike, the army said.

Soldiers who approached the bombed area on the outskirts of a small village on Jolo island after the raid faced dogged resistance from surviving militants, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said.

“There is intermittent fire, the area is not yet secured,” Cabangbang told GMA television in a telephone interview.

The troops had moved into the scene of the strike in an effort to retrieve the bodies of the three senior militants who were killed, as well as to take on the others who survived Thursday’s aerial assault.

The military said 15 members of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) organizations were killed in the air raid, which followed months of surveillance on the sparsely populated and isolated hinterland of Jolo.

Cabangbang gave no indication as to the scale of Friday’s fighting, but military chiefs said on Thursday that about 30 militants were at the scene when the bombings began.

The military said it had targeted, and killed, Malaysian Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, alias Marwan, one of the United States’ most-wanted terror suspects with a $5 million bounty on his head from the US government.

Zulkifli was one of JI’s top leaders and a bomb--making expert who had been hiding out in the southern Philippines since 2003, according to the US State Department.

Also reported killed was Singaporean Mohammad Ali, alias Muawiyah, another JI leader who had been hiding in the Philippines since the group killed 202 people in a series of bomb attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002.

The third senior militant reported killed was Filipino Abu Pula, also known as Doctor Abu or Umbra Jumdail, one of the core leaders of the Abu Sayyaf that is blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines.

The military claimed the killings dealt a major blow to the capabilities of the two terror groups, particularly their ability to strike in the Philippines.

Philippine armed forces spokesman Colonel Arnufo Burgos said on Thursday that the US military provided intelligence that helped in the success on the bombing raid.

A rotating force of 600 US Special Forces has been stationed in the southern Philippines since 2002 to help train local troops in how to combat Islamic militants.

The US forces are only allowed to advise the Filipino soldiers and are banned from playing a combat role.

Major terror attacks in Southeast Asia

A look at major attacks in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia attributed to the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and their allies from the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah.

— April 1995: Abu Sayyaf militants raid the mostly Christian town of Ipil in southern Philippines, killing more than 50 people after robbing banks and stores and burning the town center.

— April 2000: Abu Sayyaf gunmen seize 21 people, including Western tourists, from a Malaysian resort and take them to their Philippine stronghold on Jolo Island; most are released in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom reportedly paid by Libya.

— May 2001: Americans and other tourists are snatched from the Dos Palmas resort in the southwestern Philippine province of Palawan, starting a yearlong kidnapping saga that leaves several hostages dead, including Americans Guillermo Sobero and Martin Burnham.

— August 2001: 33 Christian residents of Balobo village on southern Philippines’ Basilan Island are taken hostage and 10 are beheaded.

— October 2002: Triple bombings on Bali, Indonesia, kill 202, mostly foreign tourists, including 88 Australians. Police say al-Qaida helped fund the attacks.

— October 2002: A nail-laden bomb detonates in Zamboanga city in southern Philippines, killing four, including an American Green Beret. Four more bomb attacks during the month, killing 16, are blamed on Abu Sayyaf.

— August 2003: A suicide bomber attacks the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, killing 11.

— February 2004: A bomb on a passenger ferry in Manila Bay kills 116 in the Philippines’ worst terrorist strike.

— April 2004: Three crewmen of a Malaysian tugboat are abducted off Malaysia’s Sabah state; they are believed to have either died of illness or killed by their captors.

— September 2004: A suicide bomber detonates a ton of explosives packed into a delivery van outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, killing 11 and wounding 200.

— February 2005: Almost simultaneous bombings in Manila and two southern cities kill eight and wound more than 100.

— October 2005: Triple suicide bombers kill 20 in attacks on restaurants in Bali.

— January 2009: Gunmen on Jolo kidnap three aid workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross from Switzerland, Italy and the Philippines. They are freed separately, reportedly after ransom is paid.

— July 2009: Suicide-bomb attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta kill seven people and wound more than 50.

— July 2011: Filipino militants kidnap an American, her teenage son and Filipino cousin. She is freed two months later and the boy escapes in December.

— February 2012: Gunmen seize two tourists, one Dutch and one Swiss, in Tawi-Tawi province in southern Philippines.

AFP/AP