Twelve militants, including two commanders, were killed in a clash with government troops Tuesday night in the southern Philippine province of Basilan, an official said on Wednesday.

The firefight erupted around 9 p.m. local time (1300 GMT), hours after the release of three kidnapped public school teachers in the hinterland of Basilan island, said Mayor Talib Pawaki of the township of Mohammad Ajul.

Besides the abduction of the teachers four months ago, the bandits -- led by Usman Lidjal and Ben Muncay -- were believed responsible for a series of kidnappings and even beheadings in Basilan province and Zamboanga City.

Pawaki said that government troops have retrieved all the bodies of Lidjal, Muncay and ten of their followers at the site of the encounter, a camp located in the Basilan jungles.

Government troops are still in the area running after other militants who managed to escape when the camp was raided, about nine hours after they released the three teachers whom they abducted off Sacol Island, Zamboanga City on January 23.

Lidjal and Muncay were tagged by the military as responsible for other kidnappings in Basilan and the beheading of Zamboanga farmer Doroteo Gonzales last week.

Tuesday's clash triggered an evacuation of local villagers in Mohammad Ajul.

Lidjal and Muncay had earlier been identified as renegade members of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Reports say they have joined the radical group of Abu Sayyaf and engaged in banditry in the southern Philippines. MILF is the country's largest rebel group with 11,800 fighters while the 380- strong Abu Sayyaf is an extremist group behind a series of most deadly attacks in the Southeast Asian country.

Militants are still holding at least five hostages in Basilan, including a Sri Lankan peace advocate and three other school teachers. Ransom is widely believed to be the motive behind most kidnappings in the Philippines.

(Xinhua News Agency May 27, 2009)