Manila, Philippines — Deploying some 660 U.S. troops may help control the Muslim extremist group that has plagued the Philippines for a decade, but the escalating American involvement will test ties between Washington and one of its closest allies in Southeast Asia.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo welcomes the U.S. military buildup, saying it could help deliver a fatal blow to the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
But the military mission could also further inflame the country's Muslim minority and alienate some of the president's leftist supporters.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon that up to 250 U.S. troops were in the country and "several hundred more" would follow. A "small number" of the Americans were on the southern island of Basilan, an area where Philippine forces have been battling Abu Sayyaf rebels.
Philippine officials say the six-month joint exercise will total about 660 troops, including 160 U.S. Army Special Forces, and some will be allowed to work in the southern Philippines.
It would essentially be a new front in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but a radically different mission from Afghanistan shifting to a heavily support-based role helping a friend rather than ousting an adversary, and coping with tropical jungle instead of snow and desert.
The aim is to help eradicate the Abu Sayyaf. But the group which now holds two Americans, Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kan., and a Filipino hostage has defied successive governments for 10 years in the jungle-covered mountains of the remote southern islands.
Abu Sayyaf has only about 800 fighters, but it's a loosely knit federation of gangs that can escape by melting into the jungles or dropping weapons and blending into the local populace.
The possibility of U.S. troops firing at a Filipino even a violent radical has sparked criticism from the Muslim minority, nationalists, the mainstream political opposition and left-wing groups that are traditionally anti-American.
But that doesn't trouble Arroyo at least for now.
"I will weather the criticisms because in the end, if we get the Abu Sayyaf, we would have been victorious," she said Wednesday.
Thousands of Filipino troops have been battling Abu Sayyaf since June on Jolo and Basilan islands, but with few victories.
The rebels once escaped a tight military cordon and are better equipped after using tens of millions of dollars in ransoms to buy weapons and speedboats.
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said most of the U.S. soldiers would arrive within a month and the two governments are still deciding exactly what the Americans can do in combat areas.
The Philippine constitution prohibits foreign combat troops on sovereign territory, but the government will let U.S. forces carry weapons into areas where the Abu Sayyaf operates to observe the Filipinos in combat. The Americans are only supposed to fire in self-defense.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.