MANILA, PHILIPPINES - FOUR Philippines soldiers and a communist guerrilla were killed in separate clashes, the military said on Tuesday.

New People's Army (NPA) gunmen shot the troops near the town of Motiong on Samar island on Monday after luring them to the area by attacking a family home, a military report said.

Impoverished Samar, the Southeast Asian archipelago's third-largest island, is a hotbed of the country's four-decade Maoist insurgency. An army division of around 10,000 soldiers is based on the island.

Meanwhile government forces raided a suspected NPA hideout near the town of Sariaya, southeast of Manila at dawn Tuesday, killing one rebel, a military report said.

About 19 other guerrillas escaped, it added.

The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. -- AFP