MANILA, 9 February — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) pledged yesterday to deny shelter to Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, the target of US military action now unfolding in the southern Philippines.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu also assured the authorities that the separatist MILF was not involved in the kidnapping Wednesday of a South Korean on Mindanao island.

Some 600 US troops are mustering in Mindanao to take part in exercises with local troops that will include joint operations on the adjacent island of Basilan, where Abu Sayyaf gunmen are holding an American missionary couple and a Filipina nurse hostage.

There have been warnings that the US and Philippine troops to be deployed to Basilan might pursue the Abu Sayyaf into the so-called MILF camps in the area, resulting in an escalation of the anti-terror campaign.

Kabalu however told ABS-CBN television that the MILF would not let the Abu Sayyaf, which has alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden, to enter MILF camps in Basilan.

"We are going to hold them, we will arrest them, then we will turn them over to the (peace negotiating) panel and let the panel discuss about it," Kabalu said.

The MILF signed a ceasefire last year and is pursuing peace negotiations with the government but sporadic clashes with the military still occur.

Kabalu also denied that MILF members were behind the abduction of South Korean Yoon Jae-Kun, 43, and his Filipino partner.

He insisted that they were seized by members of another group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

He dismissed military accusations that the kidnappers were MILF members and said that the names of the suspects given by the government were all MNLF leaders.

The MILF spokesman also said that no foreigners were trained by the MILF in the Philippines despite allegations that some Malaysian militants had undergone training in their camps in the south.

The MILF is a 1987 off-shoot of the MNLF, which signed a peace treaty with the Philippine government in 1996.

In a separate radio interview, chief government peace negotiator Eduardo Ermita said that the government was taking measures to make sure the joint US-Philippine operations in Basilan do not result in a clash with the MILF.

He said government negotiators were asking MILF leaders to make sure that groups like the Abu Sayyaf "are prevented from entering the (MILF) camps".

"We believe that the MILF is sticking to the ceasefire. We also do not want it destroyed just because of the Abu Sayyaf," Ermita said.