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| Southeast Asia |
| Philippines: JUSTOF-P Unit to Basilan |
| 2007-09-20 |
| Roughly "A dozen members of a US Special Forces advisory group," operating on a rotation basis with Philippine Military in the Mindanao region, "Have been deployed to the Island province of Basilan." radio reports in Manila said Thursday. The area has seen in the last three months, "heavy fighting," between U.S. backed Philippine forces and members of the Islamic terrorist organization, The Al Harakatul Al Islamiyah or Abu Sayyaf, and Jemaah Islamiyah or JI. The U.S. units, primarily provide technical and humanitarian support in coordination with the Philippine Armed Forces. "The deployment was at the request of Philippine Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command." Philippine military officials told the PNC bureau in Manila that the deployment is not of a combat nature, but, is near an area of "recent heavy fighting." "Primarily, the request was to help with medical and communications logistics." reports went on to say, "The operations of the JUSTOF-P or Joint Special Operations Task Force—Philippines often involve non-combat technical support and ’synergy’ with Philippine forces." Philippine Armed Forces officials told reporters early Thursday morning in Maniia. Armed, but only authorized to fire in self defense, the units have had a history of a high level of success in civil-military “hearts and minds,” operations. The units often are comprised of medics, technical support staff, civil military humanitarian teams, and, engineers. The U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, which has operational supervision over JUSTOF-P activities, does not issue comments on the "Ongoing operations and projects," of the members of JUSTOF-P. The Philippine Military Spokesman, in Mindanao stressed all actions are in strict compliance with U.S. - Philippine agreements and law. Terrorist groups like the Abu Sayyaf, operating in the Southern Philippines have a long history of ties to Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist organizations. The Philippines is a former US Commonwealth, as well as a major Non-NATO ally of the U.S.A., and has a treaty of mutual defense as well as access agreements for ‘training and cooperation.’ US Announces $190 Million Dollar Aid Package For Mindanao Wednesday, The U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney announced a new aid package of support of economic and infrastructure programs and funds to help the Philippine peace process. The Malaysian brokered and U.S. funded peace talks hope to end nearly 34 years of Insurgent fighting between Islamic separatists of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or M.I.L.F. a combination of development assistance, education grants, and direct funding of livelihood programs by the U.S. Agency for International development have largely reduced the level of fighting in Mindanao. One group, the Moro National Liberation Front has already entered into a peace agreement with government. In 1999 U.S. funded peace accord, reducing by several thousand the number of armed rebels in the region. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 here is one of the results of JSOTOF-P www.zambokids.org |
| Posted by: Captain Snavimp2628 2007-09-20 10:55 |
| #2 The Philippines is a major Non-NATO ally of the U.S.A. You could have fooled me. I don't recall being invited back to Subic Bay. Yesterday the French, today the Philippines; the definition of ally has become a bit too elastic. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-09-20 07:35 |
| #1 Somebody at the 'Milbloggers visit the President' event last week mentioned they had an embed with an outfit in the Philippines coming up soon, which got a raised eyebrow from a general who was there. I wonder if this is the outfit. It would be nice to get some reports out of that theatre. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-09-20 07:23 |