COTABATO CITY — The police and military are guarding against retaliations by the companions of three gunmen killed in a gunfight at the border of Naga and Kabasalan towns in Zamboanga Sibugay on Tuesday.

The fatalities, Abdul Jain Sahibad, his younger brother Fahad, and Mursid Ansao Ahod, died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the encounter.

The older Sahibad was tagged in the Oct. 17 abduction in Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte of American national Elliot Onil Eastman, married to a Tausug woman, whose family is residing in the municipality.

Radio reports in Central Mindanao on Wednesday stated that the mayor of Naga, Rino O. Delos Reyes, indefinitely suspended classes in all schools in the municipality since Tuesday, anticipating another possible encounter between the group of the three slain local terrorists and pursuing government security forces.

Lt. Gen. Roy M. Galido, commander of the Philippine Army, told reporters in Cotabato City on Wednesday via text message that Tuesday’s clash in Barangay Canacan in Kabasalan erupted when armed men opened fire at soldiers and policemen dispatched to check on reports by villagers about their presence in the area.

“There is close coordination between Army units in the Zamboanga peninsula and the police in addressing that security issue,” Mr. Galido said.

Local officials told reporters that four other terrorists wounded in the encounter were seen being carried away by companions who scampered away when they sensed that more reinforcements were closing in. — John Felix M. Unson