The Philippines today ruled out asking US troops for help in attacking Muslim rebels who seized 20 hostages, including three Americans, from a tourist resort at the weekend.
"The Philippine government considers this as internal so that commitment of any ground troops will come from the armed forces of the Philippines," military spokesman Brigadier-General Edilberto Adan told a news conference.
He said the military had still not traced the hostages and their captors - members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group - but a search was continuing across a vast archipelago of tiny islands in the south of the country.
Yesterday Brigadier-General Adan said the Philippines and US - due to hold joint military exercises begining tomorrow - were consulting at the highest levels on possible cooperation to end the crisis.
The nature of the assistance will have to be in the area of information gathering, Brigadier-General Adan said, when asked what kind of assistance the Philippines would want from US.
The Manila radio station DZBB, quoting an unnamed government source, said the rebels were seen yesterday holding the captives on a motorboat booby-trapped with grenades near the shores of Kinapusan island in the Tawi Tawi island group, 1,050 km (650 miles) south of Manila.
The radio said Navy boats had cordoned off the rebel craft to prevent it from escaping, but that by this morning the boat had gone.
It was being guarded (by the Navy) and we don't know how it slipped through, the unnamed source said on radio.
Brigadier-General Adan said the military had received no such information and that it had checked other reports about the supposed presence of the hostages and their captors in various islands in the south, but all proved negative.