The Philippines military says 7 marines have been killed and 21 others were wounded in fierce clashes with Al Qaeda linked Islamic militants on Thursday. A spokesman said helicopters were sent to back up the submarines after they entered a base of Abu Sayyaf group on the forests Island of Jolo in the south of the country. The BBC reports that, Abu Sayyaf, a small gang of self-styled Islamist militants founded in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, is blamed for the country's worst terrorist attacks.