National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said that instead of ground troops, the United States would provide intelligence, training and equipment to help against Islamic militants who have been fighting the Philippine government for years.

"We would like to state that there is no possibility that the Americans could be conducting covert and overt military action using their own troops," Golez said.

Golez was reacting to a New York Times report quoting unidentified U.S. officials who said terrorists with links to Osama bin Laden in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are among the likely targets of future covert and overt American actions.

The report also said the Philippines has become a major operational hub for terrorists, adding that people linked to bin Laden _ the principal suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States _ are in Manila and elsewhere in the country.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, told the Security Council on Monday that Washington may target countries other than Afghanistan to root out terrorist groups. "We may find that our self-defense requires further actions with respect to other organizations and other states," he said, without specifying any nations.

The most extremist guerrilla group battling the Philippine government, the Abu Sayyaf, is believed to have links with bin Laden. The group, notorious for kidnappings of Filipinos and foreign tourists, is currently holding two Americans and claims to have beheaded a third.

Golez said operations against terrorist groups, particularly the Abu Sayyaf, would involve "exclusively Filipino troops."

"But the Americans shall help by way of extending to us additional special equipment, additional training and probably a sharing of intelligence information," he said. "That is the extent of the covert and overt U.S. military participation in the effort to neutralize the Abu Sayyaf."

The Abu Sayyaf claims it is fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines, but the government regards it as a bandit group.

Last year, it abducted 21 Western tourists and Asian workers from a Malaysian resort and held them for months on southern Jolo island until finally releasing all but one in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom.

In May, Abu Sayyaf guerrillas seized three Americans and 17 Filipinos from an upscale resort. After claiming to kill one American, they are still holding Martin and Gracia Burnham of Kansas, and 16 other Filipinos hostages on southern Basilan island, where a major military rescue operation is underway.

On Friday, soldiers recovered remains on Basilan believed to be of the slain American, Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif.

The Abu Sayyaf, included by the United States on its list of terrorist organizations, was organized in the early 1990s by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani.

Philippine officials say Janjalani, who was killed in a police raid on his hide-out in Basilan in 1998, was among Filipino Muslims who joined international Islamic fighters who battled the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he was believed to have established contact with bin Laden. His younger brother, Khadaffy, now leads the group.

The Philippines has proposed forming a sub-regional coalition against terrorism with Malaysia and Indonesia. The three countries are facing growing extremist violence.