Two people were killed while three others were wounded in a grenade attack on a church in the southern Philippines, police said Thursday.

Church goers at the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, in the farming town of Pikit, were in the middle of a prayer service early Wednesday evening when the explosion occurred, police said.

Two Swiss nationals have been shot dead in a southern Philippine resort town, police said Monday.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Wednesday criticized the United Nations for refusing to better arm Filipino peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, saying this made their mission "impossible".

Aquino said the UN's rejection of his request to give the peacekeepers more weapons had left them unnecessarily vulnerable when Al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels attacked and surrounded them in August.

The Islamic State group's jihadist appeal is fanning fears that it could serve as a potent new rallying cry for Southeast Asian extremists who had been largely brought to heel following past deadly terror attacks.

Authorities in Indonesia -- the world's most populous Islamic country -- and Muslim-majority Malaysia have watched with alarm as scores, possibly even hundreds, of their nationals are believed to have gone to Syria and Iraq to join the fight for a hardline Muslim caliphate.

The Philippines dispatched an estimated 1,000-plus extra soldiers to its troubled south on Sunday to strengthen security after Islamic militants threatened to kill one of two German hostages, the military said.

A military statement said an army brigade, a unit that usually comprises between 800 to 1,500 troops, was flown to the remote Sulu island group, where the Abu Sayyaf militants are believed to be holding the two German tourists.

An American and a Filipino national face life in prison after they were found guilty Thursday in California of plotting to aid jihadists overseas and to kill U.S. soldiers.

A jury convicted Sohiel Omar Kabir, 36, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Filipino Ralph Deleon, 25, at the conclusion of a six-week trial that comes as the United States leads air strikes in Syria and Iraq against Islamic militants. 

Germany said Wednesday it would not change its policy following a reported threat by Philippine Islamist militants to kill a German hostage unless Berlin stops backing U.S. action against jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

"We heard about the report and I would like to say one thing: threats are not an appropriate way to influence our policy in Syria and Iraq," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

Tens of thousands of people fled roof-high floods and one girl drowned in the Philippine capital on Friday as another vicious storm swept across the disaster-plagued country.

Rescue workers in trucks and rubber dinghies plucked residents from the tops of flooded homes, after one of Manila's major rivers burst its banks, swamping heavily populated eastern districts.

The Philippines has pulled its peacekeepers from the Golan Heights ahead of schedule amid worsening security there, a military spokesman said Friday.

A total of 244 of the 344 Filipino soldiers and staff will arrive back in Manila later Friday, with the rest flying in the next week or so, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala told Agence France Presse.

Lava cascaded down the Philippines' most active volcano on Wednesday as authorities rushed to evacuate thousands ahead of a possible deadly eruption.

Mostly women, children and the elderly carrying bags of clothes were hauled out of farming villages near Mayon volcano's slopes on board army trucks and minibuses.