Philippine police shoot dead Malaysian carrying bomb

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"'If you arrest or shoot me I have a bomb. I will explode it,'" Davao city police chief Ronald de la Rosa quoted the suspect as telling police at the lobby of a hotel during a three-and-a-half-hour stand-off.

The authorities had raided the hotel in the southern city of Davao after a tip-off that one of its guests was planning a "terror" attack in the city of 1.4 million people, city police chief Ronald de la Rosa told reporters, without elaborating on the source of the information.

He said the suspect, Mohammad Noor Fikrie of Malaysia, was a suspected member of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamic militant group blamed for attacks in Southeast Asia including the Bali bombing in Indonesia in 2002 that claimed 202 lives.

While in the hotel lobby, the suspect brandished a mobile phone, which, he said was the trigger for the explosives contained in the backpack that was being carried by his Filipina wife, de la Rosa said.

The warning triggered a stampede by guests and hotel staff for the exits and the suspect and his wife took advantage of the ensuing chaos to flee the building and run to a nearby park, the official said.

The couple weaved among park visitors in a bid to shake off the authorities, but when they reached a deserted area police snipers opened fire, killing the man, de la Rosa said.

He said police arrested the woman, Anabelle Nieva Lee, and disarmed an "improvised explosive device" that included a mortar shell retrieved from the backpack.

Authorities are investigating the woman's possible involvement with Jemaah Islamiyah, de la Rosa said, adding police believe she had converted to Islam when she married the Malaysian.