MANILA, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants shot dead on Wednesday an army soldier and two militiamen in Basilan, an island province in the southern Philippines, the military said.

The military said the three were travelling on board two motorcycles when the militants shot them dead around 8:45 a.m. on Wednesday in Sumisip town in Basilan.

"The recent attack is a clear manifestation that the Abu Sayyaf group is incapable of engaging combat troops who are conducting intensified operations in the area. Rather, they are resorting to diversionary tactics to disrupt the peaceful situation in the province," Lt. Gen. Arnel Dela Vega, commander of the Western Mindanao Command, said in a statement.

Abu Sayyaf is a radical insurgent group in the Philippines, and often carry out kidnappings, bombings and beheadings in western Mindanao, particularly in their lair in the island provinces of Basilan and Sulu.

Abu Sayyaf gained notice in the southern Philippines in the early 1990s. It acquired a worldwide notoriety with a series of kidnappings and beheadings.