Leftist rebels on Tuesday kidnapped two soldiers guarding a Japanese banana farm in southern Philippines, the authorities said.

Some 20 New People's Army guerrillas disguised as farm workers stormed the compound of the Sumitomo Fruits Philippines (Sumifru) in a village in New Corella town, in Mindanao's Davao del Norte province around 4 a.m., Senior Superintendent Samuel Gadingan, provincial police chief, said.

"The rebels were wearing white overall suits used by farm workers disarmed the guard of his shotgun and two communication radios and headed to the bunkhouse where the soldiers were staying, " Gadingan told Xinhua by text message. "The suspects then seized the troopers at gunpoint."

Gadingan said the kidnapped soldiers belong to the army's 60th Infantry Battalion and served as augmentation guards for the Japanese banana company.

The suspects took a truck owned by the firm and used this in fleeing.

Police and army troops were now conducting pursuit to locate and rescue the soldiers, the police officer added.

Tuesday's attack came just a day after alleged NPA gunmen ambushed an ambulance in a hinterland village in Surigao del Sur province, also in Mindanao, killing four civilians and wounding a village chief and four others.

The 4, 000-strong NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been fighting a leftist insurgency in 60 Philippine provinces since 1969.