Police officer Ali Akmad, who was slightly wounded, said the attackers stopped him and his colleagues on a road to Barangay Bualo.
Akmad said he had thought the attackers were soldiers manning a checkpoint.
Capt. Jose Ritche Pabilonia, spokesman of the Armed Forces Southern Command, said the Army’s 104th Infantry Brigade tagged the Abu Sayyaf unit led by Albader Parad as behind the ambush.
Parad is said to be the successor of slain Abu Sayyaf leader Mujib Susukan. The two figured in the kidnapping of 21 mostly Malaysian and European hostages from the Malaysian island resort of Sipadan in April 2000.
The ambush occurred two days after suspected Abu Sayyaf hit men gunned down a soldier in downtown Jolo.
Sulu is a stronghold of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, which is notorious for ransom kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, including a February 2004 attack that gutted a ferry and killed 116 people in one of Southeast Asia’s worst terrorist attacks.
US troops maintain a presence in Sulu as part of counter-terrorism training, focusing on humanitarian missions, including building schools, fixing roads and improving water supply.
Elusive Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani and a number of Indonesian militants belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian-based group also linked to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, have been sighted in Sulu in recent months, military officials said.
Janjalani’s presence has raised concerns that Abu Sayyaf may be plotting attacks against Philippine and US troops, officials said. — Roel Pareño, AP