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Force 1700 headed to philippines { February 21 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/21/international/asia/21FILI.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/21/international/asia/21FILI.html
February 21, 2003
U.S. Combat Force of 1,700 Is Headed to the Philippines
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — The United States will send more than 1,700 troops to the Philippines in the next few weeks to fight Muslim extremists in the southern part of the country, opening a new front in the campaign against terrorism, Pentagon officials said today.
The first troops are to be deployed within days. Unlike a six-month mission last year that involved 1,300 American troops, it will not limit United States forces to an advisory role allowing them to fire only in self-defense, military officials said.
The operation will last as long as necessary "to disrupt and destroy" the estimated 250 members of the extremist group Abu Sayyaf, one official said. It steps up the battle against terrorism as the United States prepares for possible war with Iraq and continues to hunt Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Under the new plan, about 750 ground troops, including 350 in the Special Operations forces, will conduct or support combat patrols in the jungles of Sulu Province. About 1,000 marines, armed with Cobra attack helicopters and Harrier AV-8B attack planes, will stand ready aboard two ships offshore to act as a quick-response force, and provide logistics and medical support.
Negotiations between the two countries have been under way for months, officials said, but Abu Sayyaf's repeated attacks and the bombing death of an American Green Beret last October spurred the Philippine president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and the American defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to agree on this plan.
President Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said on Monday that American troops would be sent to Sulu Province, but he described the mission as an "exercise" that would "more or less" resemble the mission last year on Basilan Island.
A Pentagon official said tonight that one reason for telling reporters today about the new mission in the Philippines was that Mr. Bunye had mischaracterized the scope of an operation that had already been agreed upon in private. President Bush signed off on the operation after being briefed by Mr. Rumsfeld last week, officials said.
Dispatching commandos to the jungles of the southern Philippines gives Pentagon officials a chance to show that they can, as they have asserted, fight a war with Iraq and still hunt down terrorists elsewhere.
Welcoming help from the Philippines' former colonial ruler, the United States, has proven a delicate issue for President Arroyo. But she has now said she will not seek re-election, and some diplomats said that could make it easier for her to weather any political fallout.
The Philippine Constitution prohibits foreign troops from carrying out unilateral combat missions, but the American forces will technically play a supporting role in the Philippine-led operation, a distinction that may allow Mrs. Arroyo and her supporters to skirt the legal issue. "It's something they will have to finesse," one senior American official said.
American officials suggested that the American track record in the Philippines in recent months might help overcome Philippine skepticism. By leaving on schedule and honoring the restrictions on accompanying combat patrols, the United States assuaged many fears that the training mission last year on Basilan would turn into a permanent American encampment. Since then, smaller numbers of advisers have been in the Philippines on training missions.
The new combat operation reflects the Pentagon's growing concern that militant Islamic networks pose an increasing threat to Americans in Southeast Asia.
It also indicates that the mission with Philippine forces last year on Basilan failed to quell the Muslim rebels. Only one major Abu Sayyaf leader was killed during that operation, and the group's other leaders have since reorganized in Sulu Province, principally on Jolo Island.
While the American-led mission effectively drove Abu Sayyaf from Basilan and parts of southern Mindanao, the American-trained Philippine forces have not sustained the momentum. Abu Sayyaf has been tied to a string of recent bombings and attacks in the southern Philippines, including an explosion outside a karaoke bar last October that killed Sgt. First Class Mark Wayne Jackson and two Filipinos and injured many more, Pentagon officials said.
Philippine forces have made some inroads recently. A top Abu Sayyaf commander, Mujib Susukan, was reported to have died on Wednesday from wounds suffered during a government assault on his hide-out on Jolo a day earlier, a Philippines military commander said.
"The Philippines have a terrorist problem and we have offered our assistance," a senior Pentagon official said today.
In a sign of the importance the Pentagon is placing on the mission, the American forces will be led by Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Weber, the commander of the Third Marine Division, based at Okinawa.
The Bush administration has declared Abu Sayyaf a terrorist organization. A decade ago, when the group was founded with a goal to create an Islamic state, Osama bin Laden sent a brother-in-law to coordinate with the group. He provided money and sought to arrange a merger between Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a much larger group in the Philippines.
American and Philippine intelligence officials have said the relationship never developed. Abu Sayyaf degenerated into kidnappers for ransoms. The group kidnapped several Americans, including Martin and Gracia Burnham. Mr. Burnham was killed in a botched rescue by Philippine soldiers on June 7, as was a Filipino, Ediborah Yap; Mrs. Burnham has since returned to the United States.
Some American officials believe that in recent months, Abu Sayyaf has established connections with Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical network that seeks an Islamic state across Southeast Asia.
A military assessment team is expected to arrive in the Philippines in the next few days, and a full force could be conducting combat operations against Abu Sayyaf within a month, a Pentagon official said.
As they have for months, the United States Navy will continue to fly regular reconnaissance missions over the Sulu Archipelago to provide intelligence to Philippine and American forces.
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