The military said that troops were conducting patrol duty in the island province, as part of the security measures imposed by the arrival of Admiral Thomas Fargo, Commander-in-chief of the Pacific Command (CINPAC) in this nearby southern port city, when the encounter occurred.
The military reported that elements of the 55th Infantry Battalion spotted three suspected Abu Sayyaf members in Maluso town, at about 4 a.m. on Sunday.
Government troops immediately engaged the suspects in a brief firefight and left two of them killed. The third suspect managed to escape with the rest of the gunmen who were waiting from a distance aboard a pumpboat.
The suspects were identified as Inning Sabador and Andong Mataon.
The military could not immediately determine the reason for the presence of the suspects in the area but said that any attempt of sabotage or terror attack in the island province could spoil the visit of Fargo, the most senior US military official in the Asia Pacific, who made Zamboanga City as his first stop following his visit to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.— Roel Pareño