Dozens of Filipino UN peacekeepers performed the "greatest escape" from besieging terrorists in Syria, slipping away under the cover of night after gunmen rammed their Golan Heights outpost with armed trucks, the Philippine military said Sunday.

All 75 soldiers serving with a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Middle East flashpoint zone reached safety after the gunmen, some linked to Al-Qaeda, surrounded them and demanded their weapons on Thursday, military chief General Gregorio Catapang said.

Catapang called it "the greatest escape" and praised the soldiers.

"Although they were surrounded and outnumbered they held their ground," he told reporters.

However the fate of 44 UN peacekeepers from Fiji remained unknown. The Fijians were taken captive by militants just before the Filipinos were besieged.

The troops are part of a UN peacekeeping force which has been stationed in the Golan Heights since 1974 to monitor a ceasefire between the Zionist entity and Syria.

The Zionist enemy occupied 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War, then annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.

The UN peacekeeping force is there to monitor the ceasefire.

Source: AFP