MANILA -- Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered a stepped up manhunt for Muslim extremists after police captured nine suspected members of a cell linked to the Al Qaeda network, officials said on Sunday.

The nine, all converts to Islam, were arrested in raids since May 1 in the Christian-dominated provinces of Pangasinan and Tarlac, north of Manila, on the main Island of Luzon, regional police chief Brigadier-General Reynaldo Berroya said.

Three guns, several grenades, ammunition, communications equipment and binoculars were seized from the group, Reuters reported.

One of the suspects denied the group had any link to extremists or to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, which the United States has accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"The president has ordered us to intensify our operations against the others who may be connected with the group," Berroya told Reuters by phone. "Hopefully, we will be able to make more arrests."

He said interrogation of the suspects and "an analysis of documents" seized from them showed they belonged to one of several underground cells set up by Al Qaeda on Luzon.

"Al Qaeda has developed several cells in Luzon," Berroya said.

The cells, some of which are located in the capital, Manila, and in the northern mountain city of Baguio, were established "As part of a plan to build a nationwide network", Berroya said.

--- Terror Cell Said Dismantled ---

"We have dismantled one of their cells with the arrest of the suspects," he said. "They have set up an 18-hectare (44-acre) training camp in Pangasinan and we are now scouring the area."

Six of the group were arrested in an Islamic school in Anda town in Pangasinan, 220km (135 miles) northwest of Manila, while three were captured in the adjacent Tarlac province.

We are not terrorists and most of all we are not members of the Al Qaeda and the Abu Sayyaf, or any of the terrorist groups to which we are being linked," an unidentified suspect said on Manila's ANC television network.

"We are devoted Muslim converts. We were illegally detained by the police," the man said.

Berroya said interrogation of the suspects showed they were "Waiting to receive a share of the ransom money" which the local Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas expected to collect from the kidnapping of U.S. missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham.

The Abu Sayyaf, also linked by Washington to Al Qaeda, has been holding the Burnhams and a Filipina nurse hostage for almost a year on the southern Island of Basilan.

A ranking Abu Sayyaf commander was arrested by soldiers in a village hut on Basilan last week while recovering from a gunshot wound suffered in an encounter with government forces.

In a separate incident, three alleged members of a kidnap gang dubbed "Pentagon", composed of breakaway Muslim separatist guerrillas, were shot and killed in fighting on Saturday in north Cotabato Province, also in the south, the military said.

The United States has sent hundreds of troops to the southern Philippines to train local soldiers in counter terrorism and help them defeat the Abu Sayyaf, which professes to fight for an Islamic state but is mainly engaged in kidnap for ransom.

Berroya said police were also looking into possible links between the suspects and the Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a southeast Asia-based militant group allegedly connected to Al Qaeda.

Security forces in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines have detained dozens of Islamic militants in recent weeks on suspicion they might be linked to JI.