Four hostages, including priest, killed in Philippine rescue

ISABELA, Philippines — Four hostages were found dead Wednesday - shot execution-style and some mutilated — after Muslim rebels holding 27 captives stumbled across Philippine troops by a river crossing and both sides opened fire.

Many of the hostages were children seized from a school. Fifteen children and their teachers were rescued after the gunfight in Basilan province, but military officials said others were taken by the fleeing Abu Sayyaf rebels.

Also Wednesday, rebel leaders holding a separate group of 21 hostages on neighboring Jolo island said two of their foreign captives died during a clash with troops. But military officials said they had no knowledge that any of the hostages — who include 10 foreign tourists — had been killed.

The two clashes came during a chaotic day of attacks in the southern Philippines. As the hostage standoffs degenerated into gunfights, the region's other major rebel group claimed responsibility for a series of bombings that left at least four dead and dozens wounded in several towns. It was the worst recent outbreak of violence linked to the rebel groups fighting for a separate Islamic state in the Philippines' impoverished Mindanao region, home of the country's Muslim minority.

There was no official word on who killed the four hostages, identified as a priest, a male teacher and two female teachers.

The 27 Basilan hostages, mostly children, were among about 50 people seized by the rebels on March 20 for use as human shields.