The daylong fighting on Wednesday left 23 soldiers and at least 40 rebels dead.

The fighting began when troops stormed an Abu Sayyaf camp in a small village near the town of Ungkaya Pukan on the island province of Basilan, a part of the Mindanao Island grouping.

Troops seized weapons and improvised explosives at the camp that was used to train bombers, military officials told Philippines media. Troops will continue to patrol the area, according to the Philippines News Agency.

"We are presently conducting pursuit operations to go after the remnants of the Abu Sayyaf group. We are also checking the area if there were still explosive devices and high-powered firearms left," Col. Romeo Brawner, chief spokesman for the military, said.

"We have ordered naval blockade (around Basilan) to make sure they cannot leave the island."

Basilan's population of around 350,000 is 74 percent Muslim and 24 percent Christian, and is also home to several militant groups including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Military officials had suspected that Abu Sayyaf rebels were operating in the area and planned their attack carefully. But fighting apparently caught some members of the MILF in cross-fire, media reports said.

The MILF has accused government troops of attacking its forces and that soldiers mutilated the bodies of three rebels, including a senior MILF leader who was killed in the clashes. The MILF is currently negotiating a peace settlement with the government.

The military has denied attacking the MILF on purpose.

Both Muslim separatist groups, the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, have been fighting for almost 40 years for an independent Islamic state in southern Philippines. The Abu Sayyaf is listed by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

The leader of Abu Sayyaf, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, was an Islamic scholar who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden's fighters.

He was killed in a clash with the Philippines army in December 1998. Analysts have said the organization has since descended into chaos along no particular ideological lines. For more than a decade it has been accused of kidnappings, assassinations and extortion.

This week's fighting on Basilan was the heaviest since 29 soldiers were killed in two separate clashes with the Abu Sayyaf, the Bearers of the Sword, in mid-2007.

A report in the Manila Times noted that military honors were given to the 23 dead soldiers as their bodies arrived in Zamboanga City. Marine Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino, commander of military forces in Mindanao, led the funeral honors along with Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Armed Forces chief Gen. Victor Ibrado.

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