Chicago Tribune February 4, 2002
Filipinos brace for war, with U.S. help
By Alex Rodriguez
The next target in the global war on terror numbers fewer than 2,000 members, has no heavy artillery and subsists on ransoms gained from kidnappings.
And yet, the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas pose unique challenges to U.S. forces that have just begun hunting them deep in the dense, lush jungles of the southern Philippines, military experts say. Linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, Abu Sayyaf rebels have eluded Philippine troops for more than a decade, prompting President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to seek U.S. help capturing the Muslim extremists.
U.S. forces, Arroyo said Sunday in a visit to Chicago, will provide their Philippine counterparts with the surveillance technology and military intelligence they need to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf.
"This will help us go the last mile in destroying terrorism and have peace at last," Arroyo told a throng of Filipinos jammed into Our Lady of Mercy Church in the Albany Park neighborhood.
The American operation on the large southern island of Mindanao and the tiny island of Basilan bears some parallels, although on a much smaller scale, to the methods used in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime that harbored bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
U.S. military leaders say Special Forces soldiers will not launch offensives but will train and equip Philippine troops to hunt and destroy the Abu Sayyaf, whose members flee in speedboats bought with ransom money or vanish into mountainous, jungled terrain where visibility is limited to 10 yards.
The biggest obstacle to making the Philippines the newest venue in the U.S.-led war against terrorism was eliminated last month when Arroyo's vice president, Teofisto Guingona Jr., dropped his longstanding opposition. Nationalist groups had been urging Guingona to oppose the U.S. mission, but a rift within Arroyo's administration was avoided. In the early 1990s, Guingona was a major proponent of closing U.S. military bases in the Philippines.
Operation an 'exercise'
Manila is careful to call the joint operation an "exercise" because the Southeast Asian nation's constitution prohibits deployment of foreign troops on Philippine soil except during military exercises.
Up to 650 U.S. soldiers--160 of them Special Forces troops--are to take part in the "Balikatan" or "Shouldering the Load Together" exercise planned to last six months to one year. Nearly 200 U.S. soldiers are already in position. At least 3,800 Philippine troops will take part.
U.S. and Philippine leaders have been working to finalize an agreement that spells out exactly what role the Americans will play. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly said the U.S. role will be advisory, though American troops will be authorized to fire back in self-defense.
In an interview with Singapore's Channel News Asia last week, Adm. Dennis Blair, commander-in-chief of U.S. Pacific Command, emphasized that Philippine military leaders will be at the helm of the operation. U.S. soldiers primarily will work with Philippine command teams and not with Philippine front-line troops, according to Blair.
Backup role
"We don't have U.S. soldiers out in fire teams making assaults here," Blair told Channel News Asia. "They're part of this larger Philippine structure, which has the responsibility. It's agreed by both governments, and it keeps the Philippines in charge of this problem, which is what President Arroyo wants and intends to do."
Arroyo affirmed that intention Sunday in Chicago.
"Our own soldiers will do the fighting," she said.
U.S. assistance to the Philippines is expected to include surveillance technology, Arroyo added, including Huey helicopters equipped with night-flying gear. But military analysts say Basilan island's dense vegetation likely will limit the effectiveness of such gear.
"The U.S. has all kinds of surveillance technology that works well in the desert and doesn't work well in forested terrain," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and security analysis group.
"When you start changing theaters, you get involved in major changes in equipment and tactics," added Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "An island in the Pacific is so different in terms of terrain and tactical conditions, that you require forces that have the skills and the assets that can handle it."
Complicating the mission is Abu Sayyaf's kidnapping of a U.S. missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kan., and Deborah Yap, a Philippine nurse.
The Burnhams were abducted in May while vacationing on the Philippine island of Palawan, about 375 miles from Manila. Other hostages released by the Muslim extremist group say the Burnhams have been treated harshly, at times chained to trees.
On the run
An extremely mobile group, Abu Sayyaf has been moving hostages from camp to camp, keeping a step ahead of the Philippine military. The group also has used human shields in firefights.
"Obviously, it's a complicating factor," Pike said. "You could imagine having a Delta Force team doing a hostage rescue, but that depends on their ability to find out where the hostages are being held and getting there before they're moved."
Just as problematic for the U.S. effort in the Philippines, Pike said, is the question of chain of command in the field between U.S. and Philippine military personnel. Arroyo has been adamant about the mission being under the command of Philippine leaders, but circumstances such as the need to rescue U.S. soldiers could make the issue murkier if, for example, there is disagreement about how to conduct the rescue.
"That's right at the top of your standard military lessons learned: that ambiguous chains of command are dangerous," Pike said. "The problem is that there is no alternative to it."
Copyright 2002 Chicago Tribune Company
