Manila: Security forces are on red alert in the southern Philippines, following reports that two Al Qaida-linked terror groups will intensify “sympathy attacks” if air strikes are launched against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants, officials said.

“We are on red alert even if there are no established links yet between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [Isil’s other name], the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), which are based in Mindanao, southern Philippines,” major-general Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division told Gulf News.

The military is being extra careful despite denying that 100 young Filipino-Muslim from the south had joined the Isil in Syria, a source told Gulf News.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced that the United States would launch air strikes against Isil forces in Iraq and Syria.

The BIFF and Abu Sayyaf had earlier expressed support for Isil.

Abu Sayyaf has active links with Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian affiliate of Al Qaida.

The BIFF is the armed-wing of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM), which split from the 36-year old Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2008. At the time, the BIFF was against the continuation of peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF.

In an updated report, Pangilinan said two government soldiers and 10 BIFF militants were killed, with six soldiers injured, during three days of clashes that began when 20 BIFF members attacked several army detachments starting on Tuesday in Midsayap, North Cotabato on Tuesday.

“We are still looking for evidences that more BIFF members were killed in the clashes that ended on Thursday with the augmentation of military units in Midsayap,” said Pangilinan.

Clashes began after President Benigno Aquino submitted to the two houses of Congress the draft of a proposed law that will enhance the self-governance and enlarge the autonomous area of Filipino-Muslims in the southern Philippines.

The approval of the proposed law will help implement the framework agreement signed by the Philippine government and the MILF last March.

Former MILF commander Ameril Umbra Kato is BIFF’s commander.

The MILF announced earlier that it does not approve of Isil’s activities.

The Philippine government has previously forged pro-autonomy peace settlements twice with the mainstream Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in Libya in 1976 and in Malaysia in 1996. The MNLF waged a separatist war that killed 150,000 in the south in the early 70s.

After the MNLF forged a pro-autonomy peace settlement with the Philippine government in 1976, the MILF became a faction of the MNLF in 1978. But the MILF gave up its secessionist stance when it responded to the pro-autonomy peace initiative of the Philippine government in 1997.

Member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation brokered the Philippine government’s peace initiatives with the MNLF and the MILF.

Mindanao is home to an estimated five million Filipino-Muslims.