A Muslim extremist group has offered to hold final negotiations to release two Americans and a Filipino nurse they have held hostage for more than 11 months, a radio station reported today.

At least 12 people died and 27 were injured today when a bomb exploded at a busy department store in the southern Philippines city of General Santos, police said.

The Philippine Army has killed five members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group in a gunbattle on Basilan island in the south of the country early today.

The US military has begun training the Philippine army as part of George W Bush’s so-called "war on terrorism".

US military advisors are to provide training to Philippine soldiers fighting the Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrilla movement in the south of their country.

The Philippine Army has rescued 13 hostages from the Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels, who have beheaded 10 captives in the last three days.

Police in the Philippines have found four more headless bodies, apparently executed by the Muslim Abu Sayyaf separatist rebels.

A Muslim extremist leader responsible for the abduction of dozens of hostages threatened today to kill more of them if the Philippine government does not accept his choice of negotiators.

Muslim rebels who kidnapped around 24 hostages, including three Americans, have dumped the beheaded bodies of two of their captives near a main road outside the capital of a remote island in the southern Philippines.

As the Philippines Government stepped up its battle with Muslim rebel hostage-takers today, the military said it found two bodies in guerrilla territory, but neither belonged to the American captive the insurgents claim to have beheaded.

The six-year-old girl who spent 23 days as a hostage of Philippine rebels was freed by soldiers after a 15-minute gunfight.

Four suspected Muslim gunmen have kidnapped a six-year-old British girl in the southern Philippines after her mother could not meet their demand for cash.