The Philippines has said its US-backed airstrike on February 2 killed three senior leaders from the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) networks, as well as 12 junior figures.

 

The bodies were taken away by fellow militants in line with Muslim custom and quickly buried.

 

But Philippine military spokesman Colonel Arnulfo Burgos said police had gathered pieces of human tissue and blood after the strike on the southern island of Jolo.

 

Philippine police will now liaise with the Malaysian team over the forensic evidence.

 

"This would help the Armed Forces of the Philippines provide proof that the terrorists Mauwiyah and Marwan are already dead," Burgos told reporters.

 

The highest-profile militant reported slain was 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.

 

The Malaysian forensics experts are expected to obtain DNA samples from Zulkifli's relatives before they fly to the southern Philippines to compare samples, Burgos said without giving a timetable.

 

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 US military, which has a small team of US Special Forces providing counter-terrorism training to Filipino forces in the southern Philippines, helped in the attack by providing intelligence support, Filipino military officials said.

 

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