Thursday, August 16, 2007 US helping RP in Sulu offensive: military
THE Armed Forces of the Philippines on Wednesday said its troops are aided by elite US forces in the ongoing campaign against Abu Sayyaf bandits and rogue Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) members in Sulu.
However, AFP public information officer Bartolome Bacarro said the Americans are not involved in actual combat operations but only in giving "technical intelligence" to the Philippine military.
"In Sulu, they have been providing us with technical intelligence," said Bacarro of the US troops stationed in Sulu. He said the assistance was in congruence to what the Americans are supposed to be doing in the Philippines.
This, as Bayan Muna party-list Representative Satur Ocampo warned against direct US military involvement in combat operations in Sulu.
Ocampo expressed concern that US involvement in the Sulu operations will "only inflame the Abu Sayyaf and more so the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the New People's Army."
Joint Abu Sayyaf and MNLF members earlier ambushed Army soldiers on a re-supply mission in Indanan town, resulting in the killing of all the members of the 11-man team. Later, pursuing government forces caught up with the ambushers led by Abu Sayyaf leaders Radullan Sahiron, Dr. Abu and Albader Parad, resulted in the killing of 16 more army soldiers and wounding of nine others.
The military has ordered the deployment of fresh troops in Sulu to pursue the group, which the military said, also includes Dulmatin and Omar Patek, bombers of the Southeast Asian regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
"The role of the US soldiers relative to the ongoing operations has been the same," said Bacarro, without giving the exact number of US troops in Sulu. He said the Americans are also training the soldiers fight the terrorists and pursuing civic projects in the province.
"(But) definitely there is no combat (role for the US soldiers), it is not provided, it's not allowed (under the Constitution). Definitely they (Americans) are not involved in any combat operations," the official said.
Reports that the US soldiers were actually involved in the actual operations against Abu Sayyaf and rogue MNLF members cropped up when the American Special Forces soldiers were photographed in the company of Marine soldiers in Indanan.
But Bacarro said that the US and the Filipino soldiers were not actually engaged in combat at that time but were merely conducting a survey of a site of next year's Balikatan exercises between the two militaries.
Bacarro said the US soldiers are detailed with the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said any congressional investigations on the skirmishes in Sulu and Basilan should be conducted when government forces are able to complete their pursuit operations.
A number of senators, including rebel soldier turned Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, are calling for an investigation on the incidents that have left resulted in the death of at least 40 Marine and Army soldiers.
Teodoro said members of the Senate committee on national defense were invited to attend the National Security Council (NSC) meeting in Malacanang last Tuesday. The meeting was presided over by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
At present, Teodoro said the military is also conducting investigations on the lapses in the operations.
Meanwhile, Ocampo said the Arroyo administration should explain what happened to the vaunted US intelligence work and training for Philippine troops.
Davao City Representative Prospero Nograles, for his part, scoffed at the resolution filed by Trillanes seeking an investigation that executive officials had a hand in the July 10 ambush of Marines in Basilan.
Nograles said Congress investigations are always in aid of legislation and always with some factual basis.
"Inside information, gossip, rumors and hearsay have no place or time in Congress," said Nograles. (VR/Sunnex)
