ZAMBOANGA, Philippines -- A Kansas missionary and a Filipina nurse held hostage for more than a year by Islamic rebels were shot dead Friday as Philippine troops attacked the kidnappers in the jungle, authorities said.

     A second American hostage, Gracia Burnham, was shot in the leg during the two-hour firefight on the island of Mindanao and was flown by helicopter to a nearby military hospital.

     Col. Renato Padua, who led the raid, said her husband, Martin Burnham, and nurse Deborah Yap were executed by the Abu Sayyaf rebels during the battle. The kidnappers had threatened to kill the hostages if a rescue was attempted.

     "We tried our best to get all the hostages safely, but the kidnappers were like wild animals," Padua said.

     In Manila, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said the government was not in a position to say how the two hostages died or who shot them.

     Officials said the army mounted the raid because of concern that the kidnappers were on the verge of escaping from troops that had encircled them. The rebels slipped past the army weeks ago and headed to Mindanao from Basilan Island, where they had been holed up for nearly a year.

     The Burnhams, missionaries in the Philippines for 15 years and the parents of three children, were abducted along with 18 others from a seafront resort hotel while celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary. The rebels beheaded some of their captives, including Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif.

     U.S. troops stationed on Basilan and Mindanao Islands to train and assist the Philippine army were not involved in the rescue attempt, American and Philippine officials said.

     "We had no forces on the ground at the site of the firefight," said Navy Lt. Commander Barbara Burfeind, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

     The U.S. military has for months been sharing sophisticated intelligence equipment with the Philippine forces and instructing them in tracking skills to aid in their search for the rebels. But the extent of U.S. participation in Friday's operation was unclear.

     Philippine officials said the United States provided intelligence that helped pinpoint the location of the hostages and provided equipment, planning, technical assistance and advice for the rescue attempt.

     Burfeind said the Americans were aware of an overall operation to search part of the Zamboanga peninsula but that the gun battle took place when Philippine troops unexpectedly came upon rebels in the jungle, not during a planned raid.

     The Abu Sayyaf, a loose-knit group with several hundred members, wants to form an Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Kidnapping for ransom is its main activity. The group was connected to Osama bin Laden in the mid-1990s, but no evidence of a recent link has been made public.

     On May 27, 2001, the gang snatched Martin Burnham, 42, and his wife Gracia, 43, from the resort island of Palawan in the southwestern Philippines. A few days later they kidnapped Yap on Basilan.

     The kidnappers took the hostages by speedboat to Basilan, where they eluded soldiers by hiding in the jungle. Over the months, they released some hostages for ransom and beheaded others, including Sobero, until only the Burnhams, originally from Wichita, Kan., and Yap remained captive.

     The Burnham family may have paid a $300,000 ransom to free the couple in March, but the deal reportedly went awry and the money is missing.

     Despite Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's repeated claims that she would "crush" the insurgents, the rebels have consistently outmaneuvered government forces.

     The Philippine army did not disclose that the rebels had escaped from Basilan with their hostages to the Zamboanga Del Norte province on Mindanao. With help from U.S. forces, a Philippine special forces unit known as Scout Rangers tracked them down to a densely forested area near the town of Sirawai, about 50 miles north of Zamboanga.

     Padua, the Scout Ranger commander, said the rebels used the hostages as shields and began firing at his soldiers, wounding seven.

     "We held back our fire, but my snipers positioned themselves to get a better view of the gunmen holding the hostages," he said. "The Abu Sayyaf shot Martin and the woman. And then the kidnappers aimed their weapons at Gracia, but we took down her captors."

By Richard C. Paddock and Al Jacinto, Special to the Tribune. Richard C. Paddock and Al Jacinto are staff writers for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper