January 16, 2002	Wednesday	Ziqa’ad 1, 1422

MANILA, Jan 15: In a potentially risky military operation described as a “training exercise”, US soldiers on Tuesday began deploying in the southern Philippines, where they could be drawn into combat against armed local allies of Osama bin Laden.

Nearly 700 US troops are scheduled to pour into Basilan island and other areas of the rebellion-torn Mindanao region over the next few weeks, some to take part as advisers in real-life operations against Abu Sayyaf guerillas.

The undertaking, the first of its kind since the US-led military campaign against Osama and his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, is consistent with US President George W. Bush’s stated policy to help allied governments facing terrorism in their backyards.

The exercises, which could last at least six months to a full year, got off to a low-key start on Tuesday in the southern city of Zamboanga, where US and Filipino military coordinators met to thrash out operational details.

But the novel effort was met by warnings form some senators that the US involement could get out of hand and violate the constitution, which bars foreign combat forces on Philippine soil.

“The government should tell us the truth. Do we have a joint military exercise or offensive,” opposition Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former military chief of staff, said.

Arriving in batches starting next week from units based in Hawaii, Okinawa and the US mainland, up to 690 US soldiers would join local troops in the operations against the Abu Sayyaf as “observers” but will be armed and allowed to return fire if attacked, officials say.

Between 160-190 US military advisers would be deployed in Basilan, backed up by a 500-member support crew, they added.

More than a dozen US troops are already in Zamboanga, where barracks have been built for them.

Several hundred Abu Sayyaf Muslim gunmen have been holding an American couple hostage in the island of Basilan near Zamboanga since June. They have murdered more than a dozen other captives, including an American man.

“I emphasize the presence of the Americans is to train, advise and assist our troops and military, but they can defend themselves if attacked by enemy groups,” said Brigadier General Emmanuel Teodosio, the training director for the 1,200 Filipino troops taking part in the exercises.

“We do not want to subject them to unnecessary risks, but they will be in the battlefront,” he told reporters after the Zamboanga meeting.

Filipino military spokesman Brigadier General Edilberto Adan however stressed that the Americans were aware of the risks and “if they sustain casualties, they have already factored that in their planning.”

Apart from the US troops that figure in annual joint war games in the Philippines, American participants of the “Kalayaan-Aguila 2002” (Freedom-Eagle 2002) would be the first deployments of US ground forces in this southeast Asian archipelago in about a decade.

Tens of thousands of US servicemen vacated key forward facilities at Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base north of Manila in 1992 after the Filipino senate refused to renew a near-century old military bases treaty.

The maneuvers involve “preparation, training and deployment” in Basilan and other areas, Teodosio said.

The operation would update the application of a half-century-old mutual defense treaty between Manila and Washington, said Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, stressing: “The world has changed a lot since 1951.”

Previous annual joint maneuvers were premised on “a hypothetical external aggression” and “imaginary” enemies, he explained.

But the main threats to the Philippines have since evolved to take the form of international terrorism. After the attacks in the United States last September, “it can strike in the southern provinces of the Philippines so this is a threat that is being addressed.”—AFP