Muslim rebels trying to shake off pursuing Philippine troops on a southern island took over a church and a hospital in a small town today and said they held 200 hostages, including doctors, patients and a priest.

Mortar and gunfire ripped through the town of Lamitan on Basilan island through the night. At least one body could be seen on the street in the morning and soldiers slowly advanced through the town to the sound of sporadic gunfire.

At a makeshift hospital in the town, more than a dozen soldiers were being treated, although some had what seemed to be mortal head and body injuries. A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas said in a telephone call to a local radio station that the group controlled a church in Lamitan and its main hospital.

"We are part of an Abu Sayyaf suicide squad," spokesman Abu Sulaiman told the radio. "Now we have 200 more hostages. If you do not stop the military action, we will execute the hostages."

Military officials were not immediately available for comment. Local officials in Lamitan, a bustling market town of over 100,000 people, mostly Christians, said the rebels had taken over the St. Peters Church and an adjacent hospital. Guerrilla snipers were in the belfry and on the roof of the hospital, they said.

They said at least three people were killed in fighting overnight, including two soldiers and one rebel. Fighting between the rebels and the soldiers started yesterday morning elsewhere on Basilan. The rebel group was being pursued after it kidnapped 20 hostages, including three Americans, from an upscale island resort last Sunday.

At least 14 people, including 12 rebels and two soldiers, were killed in Friday's fighting, radio reports and military officials said. Dozens were wounded. There was no word on where the 20 hostages were. But one of them appealed on local radio for an end to the military assault, saying that the hostages lives are in danger.

Lamitan is the largest town on Basilan after the local capital Isabela. It lies slightly inland on the northern coast of Basilan but is connected to the sea by an estuary. Basilan itself is a mountainous, heavily forested island some 900 km (550 miles) south of Manila.

Its jungle-clad interior hills have long provided base camps for the Abu Sayyaf, which claims to be fighting for an independent Muslim homeland but appears to concentrate on kidnap for ransom.