Communist guerrillas threatened Wednesday to attack American troops participating in annual war exercises in the Philippines later this month if they stray into rebel zones. About 2,500 U.S. Marines and 2,300 Filipino soldiers will take part in major combat and live-fire maneuvers from Feb. 23 to March 4. The exercises, involving 46 American assault and transport aircraft, will bring U.S. troops near security hotspots, including Dinglayan Bay off Aurora, a mountainous province 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Manila, where New People’s Army guerrillas are active.
The Philippine exercise director, Brig. Gen. Rafael Romero, said there is a plan for a beach landing exercise in Dingalan Bay. The area has been adequately secured, he said. The annual exercises, launched under a 1951 defense treaty to prepare the longtime military allies for joint combat, are aimed at dealing with external threats but would also involve antiterrorism scenarios, Romero said. Military officials said the exercises are not part of any counter-insurgency operation and will not include a specific imaginary target. However, communist rebel spokesman Gregorio Rosal said the exercise in Aurora, where the guerrillas maintain a major front, could be a cover for a clandestine surveillance or anti-insurgency operation. He said the rebels will attack American or Filipino soldiers if they stray into their lairs or provoke them. "We will try to avoid trouble but we will be prepared,’’ Rosal said. "Anybody who would make provocative acts would be a target of tactical offensives.’’
A leftist group, the New Nationalist Alliance, said holding the exercises near an NPA stronghold was an act of government insincerity and a blow to peace talks that opened Tuesday between government and rebel negotiators in Norway. The group accused Washington of projecting its power in Asia by deploying U.S. troops in the Philippines, which has become "America’s doormat in the region.’’ The alliance said another venue of the exercises, western Palawan province, is crucial to U.S. interests because it is near the Spratlys, a South China Sea region contested by China, the Philippines and four other Asian nations. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a staunch U.S. ally, said the exercises had nothing to do with the dispute over the Spratly islands, and stressed that military alliance with Washington "is not aimed at any nation or foe.’’ |