US ends anti-terror force in the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines // After more than a decade of helping fight Islamic militants, the United States is disbanding an anti-terror contingent of hundreds of elite American troops in southern Philippines where armed groups such as Abu Sayyaf have largely been crippled, officials said on Thursday.

But special forces from the US Pacific Command, possibly in smaller numbers, will remain after the de-activation of the Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines (JSOTF-P), to ensure Al Qaeda offshoots such as Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah do not regain lost ground, said US and Philippine officials.

The move marks a new chapter in the long-running battle against an Al Qaeda-inspired movement in the southern Philippines, viewed by the US as a key front in the global effort to keep terrorists at bay. It reflects shifting security strategies and focus in economically vibrant Asia, where new concerns such as multiple territorial conflicts involving China have alarmed Washington’s allies entangled in the disputes.

A year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US military established the task force in the southern Philippines to help ill-equipped Filipino forces contain a bloody rampage by Abu Sayyaf gunmen, who carried out bombings, terrorised entire towns and kidnapped more than 100 people, including three Americans.

Although US forces are barred by the Philippine Constitution from engaging in combat, the advice, training, military equipment and intelligence, including drone surveillance, that they provided helped the underfunded Philippine military beat back the Abu Sayyaf.

US-backed Philippine offensives whittled the militants’ ranks from a few thousand fighters – mostly drawn from desperately poor hinterland villages – to about 300 gunmen, who survive on extortion and kidnappings for ransom while dodging military assaults.

Mr Hoyer said an unspecified number of US military personnel would remain under a new unit called the Pacom Augmentation Team to provide Filipino forces with counterterrorism and combat training and advice, and “ensure that violent extremist organisations don’t regain a foothold in the southern Philippines”.

The timing of such withdrawals from counterterrorism campaigns from the southern Philippines to Afghanistan has been a dilemma for the US, which must ensure that remaining extremist forces are not able to bounce back.

While Abu Sayyaf attacks have considerably gone down, ransom kidnappings have increased, with some militants even crossing into neighbouring Malaysia to snatch tourists.

Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Philippine officials have been notified of the US decision and expressed confidence that Filipino forces could deal with any lingering threat in the south, scene of a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

Mr Gazmin said that with the scaling down of the US presence in the south, the Americans would renew a presence elsewhere in the country to help address another security concern – China’s increasingly assertive behaviour in the disputed South China Sea, where Beijing, Manila and four other governments have been locked in increasingly tense territorial disputes.

* Associated Press