U.S. Takes Antiterrorism War to the Philippines

The Bush administration will send more than 100 additional troops to the Philippines in its latest escalation of involvement in the Philippine military's battle with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the southern Philippines. American troops have already started to trickle in. Twenty-five U.S. Special Forces troops arrived earlier this month, and the one hundred will arrive in February to train Philippine troops in antiterrorist operations. The U.S. troops will be based in Zamboanga City, in southwestern Mindanao. Current talks between the Philippines and the U.S. are considering deployment of a full battalion of U.S. soldiers.

The ASG is reportedly demanding 40 million to 50 million pesos ($800,000-1 million) for the release of three hostages -- an American missionary couple and a Filipina nurse -- who have been held by the ASG since the middle of 2001. More than 7,000 Filipino soldiers have been pursuing the ASG for months, narrowing the search to a small, densely forested area on Basilan island. The military has repeatedly announced and then failed to meet several deadlines for the rescue of these hostages. Military operations against the ASG in and around Basilan have resulted in at least 55,000 people displaced from their communities and have posed major challenges to the newly elected leaders of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which is composed of Basilan, four other provinces, and one city with a combined population of over 2.5 million people.

Despite several offers by President Bush and other U.S. officials, the Arroyo government has ruled out any possibility of U.S. troop involvement in the rescue of the Abu Sayyaf hostages. However, U.S. soldiers will be allowed to go to the battlefront to "assess" the military operations against the Abu Sayyaf. The U.S. will maintain an extended presence in the region, as the annual joint U.S.-Philippine "Balikatan" military exercises scheduled for the first quarter of this year will be centered in the southern Philippines. In addition to the political significance of the exercises, they are important because participating U.S. troops routinely leave behind equipment and materiel that can then be used by the Philippine military.

Since Sept. 11 the U.S. military has supplied cargo planes, helicopters and trucks for the operations against the Abu Sayyaf. In a November trip to Washington, President Arroyo was able to translate her strong support for the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" into millions of dollars in economic and military aid and $1 billion in trade benefits.

Before and After Sept. 11

Prior to Sept. 11, the Bush administration had been monitoring the campaign against the Abu Sayyaf, but had not been actively supporting the Philippine government's military efforts. Bilateral military cooperation had been at a low level since the Philippine Senate refused to renew a lease for U.S. military bases in the early 1990s. After Sept. 11, the Bush administration boosted ties with the Philippine military, expanding military assistance and training. The Bush administration has chosen to emphasize military involvement in this conflict and framed it as part of the broader war against Al Qaeda and the "war against terrorism."

Although there is some evidence that the ASG had had connections to the Al Qaeda in its earlier years, there is no evidence that the ASG has had regular contacts with Al Qaeda since the mid-1990s. The ASG is really a 21st century version of the criminal gangs that have long resisted colonial and Philippine government rule in this region. Most of its victims have been Filipinos, not foreigners. The ASG earns resources primarily from kidnapping and other criminal enterprises. Its success is in part due to the fact that it has used its income from ransom and robberies to buy high-powered weapons and that it provides at least some (albeit paltry) economic benefits to a desperately poor part of the Philippines, where the state is effectively absent.