Manila, Philippines — The Philippine government insisted Friday that the country will not be the scene of a new Afghanistan-like campaign in the war against terror, saying American troops here aim only to help in a battle the military has long fought against guerrillas.
The president and her officials were trying to calm concerns among many Filipinos that a U.S. mission to train soldiers against the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf will lead to a large deployment of American soldiers to the Philippines.
Some 660 U.S. troops, including 160 U.S. Army Special Forces, are to arrive in small numbers in coming weeks for the mission against Abu Sayyaf, which is believed linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. The guerrillas have been battling the Philippine military for a decade on Basilan island and other islands in the south.
Some U.S. troops will visit combat zones to observe Filipinos in combat and be allowed to carry weapons for use in self defense. The Abu Sayyaf is detaining two missionaries from Wichita, Kan., Martin and Gracia Burnham, and a Filipino hostage.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said, "It appears the Philippines is going to be the second, the next target, after Afghanistan on the war on terrorism. That Abu Sayyaf group is the target."
During a stop in Wichita, Kan., Brownback, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said the United States was scaling up involvement in the Philippines, and could send even more troops and advisers than planned.
Philippine officials on Friday denied the U.S. operation here was on the scale of the Afghanistan campaign.
"It's an exaggeration ... there's no comparison," presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said Friday. "In Afghanistan you have the Taliban armies and the al-Qaida brigades. This is not an army we are confronting in Basilan but criminal terrorist groups which have splintered."
He stressed that no Filipinos will be under U.S. command.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo also said the Philippines was not a new front in the terrorism war.
"We are not the next because we have long been fighting terrorists," she told reporters. "As far as I am concerned, we have long fought terrorists and after Sept. 11 it was the Americans who joined us."
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