MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Three female school teachers held for seven months by Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines and threatened with having their heads cut off finally won their freedom on Wednesday, police said.

Police and local officials recovered the three, who were abducted by the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group in March, in a small town on Basilan island, provincial police director Senior Superintendent Abubakar Tulawi said.

However, in his short statement he did not say if the trio had been freed in a police raid or whether a ransom had been paid to secure their release.

Members of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group blamed for the Philippines' worst terrorist attacks, adbducted the three women as they travelled on a boat from an island where they taught.

As with similar Abu Sayyaf abductions, the kidnappers had demanded hefty ransom payments for the teachers and threatened to behead them if their families did not pay the money.

The Abu Sayyaf, which says it wants an independent homeland in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines, was established in the early 1990s allegedly with seed money from Osama bin Laden.

It has carried out numerous bombings and mass kidnappings, mainly targeting Christians and foreigners, and has sometimes beheaded its captives.

Over the weekend, in the island of Jolo, south of Basilan, military forces engaged in a series of clashes with the Abu Sayyaf, leaving as many as 32 dead on both sides.