The government today warned that any covert military action by the United States against terrorist targets, such as the missile strike in Yemen last week, would be unacceptable here.

"We do not need any foreign interference or foreign troops in the country. We are capable of fighting terrorists," Defence Minister Najib Tun Razak told the official Bernama news agency.

Najib had been asked to comment on a report that US State Department coordinator for counterrorism Francis Taylor had said the Yemen strike could be emulated in Southeast Asia.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also dismissed the possibility Sunday, saying the United States could not conduct any sort of military operation in Malaysia without first informing the government and seeking its cooperation.

"There is no place for covert operations here," he said.

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Manila, which was visited by Taylor last week, has also rejected the idea that the United States could conduct strikes similar to that in Yemen, in which six suspected al-Qaeda operatives were killed by a Hellfire missile launched from a remote-controlled CIA Predator spy plane.

President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said any US missile attack in the Philippines without permission "would be an intrusion into our sovereignty".

Both Malaysia and the Philippines are strong supporters of the war on terrorism.

Meanwhile, both Najib and Abdullah have said they have no official information on media reports that two brothers of a key suspect in the Oct 12 Bali bomb blast, Amrozi, have fled to Malaysia.

Abdullah indicated that the Indonesian government had not contacted Malaysia about the issue. He said, however, that if it was true they had slipped into Malaysia, the government would arrest them and hand them over to the Indonesian authorities.