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Southeast Asia

US to spend millions on construction projects at Philippine bases

2022-11-16

[BenarNews] The United States agreed to spend $66.5 million for construction at military bases in the Philippines, beginning next year, and is looking to fund more projects under a 2014 cooperation agreement between the allies, Filipino defense officials announced Tuesday. These projects, which call for training facilities and warehouses to be built on bases, are part of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, Department of National Defense (DND) front man Arsenio Andolong said. The agreement supplements the Visiting Forces Agreement, a 1999 bilateral pact that provides the legal cover for large-scale joint military exercises between the U.S. and the Philippines, Washington’s longtime defense ally in the contested South China Sea region. "The department is committed to accelerate the implementation of EDCA by concluding infrastructure enhancement and repair projects, developing new infrastructure projects at EDCA locations and exploring new locations that will build a more credible defense posture," Andolong said in a statement. Defense official have said there are five "agreed locations" — the Cesar Basa Air Base and Fort Magsaysay in the northern provinces of Pampanga and Nueva Ecija; the Antonio Bautista Air Base and Benito Ebuen Air Base in the central provinces of Palawan and Cebu; and the Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro city in the south. "Currently, $66.5 million (3.8 billion pesos) is earmarked for the implementation of approved EDCA projects at the agreed locations," Andolong said. "The projects include construction of training, warehouse and other facilities at Cesar Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Fort Ramon Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, and Lumbia Airport Base Station in Cagayan de Oro." The work is to be completed over the next two years, according to officials. WARMING RELATIONSHIP The announcement comes as ties with the U.S. have improved since President Rodrigo Duterte left office in June. During his six years in power, Duterte, who once threatened to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement, forged closer ties with China, the United States’ rival superpower. He was succeeded by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who met with U.S. President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family, the guy who bungled Afghanistan... on the sidelines of a United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... General Assembly in New York in September. Biden and Marcos said the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty binds the nations to help each other in times of outside aggression, and so it was important to maintain their "critical relationship." The U.S. repeatedly has said it would quickly come to the Philippines’ aid over an attack in the South China Sea. Manila is locked in a dispute with Beijing over territories claimed by both nations. Meanwhile on Monday, military chief Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro said the U.S. had proposed adding five facilities to the list. "It is not definite yet," Bacarro told news hounds. Those sites, which were announced on Tuesday, include two in Cagayan, and one each in Zambales (specifically in Subic, the site of a former American naval base), Palawan and Isabela. The proposal is subject to approval by the defense and foreign affairs departments. "The DND remains consistent in its position that all engagements with the U.S. as well as other foreign partners must be conducted in accordance with the Philippine Constitution and other national laws," Andolong said. JAPAN SEEKS SIMILAR AGREEMENT Japan, which has its own territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, is seeking a similar visiting forces pact to allow its forces to train in the Philippines, a defense official said. Currently, Japanese forces are allowed to join Philippine-U.S. training exercises as "observers" only. The Philippines and Japan share intersecting interests "in the West Philippine Sea and of course the borders that we share," acting Defense Secretary Jose Faustino said. The West Philippine Sea is the Philippine name for its claimed territories in the South China Sea. "So our goal really is to strengthen this cooperation," he told news hounds.

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Southeast Asia

Muslim cleric linked to Abu Sayyaf freed

2008-04-20

A Muslim preacher arrested by military and police operatives in Boracay Island last month was freed 8 p.m. Thursday, upon orders from a court which said it found no basis for his arrest. Muhammad Bani, 27, walked free from the detention center of the Army's Intelligence Service Group in Fort Bonifacio, 40 days after he was arrested by operatives of the Intelligence Service Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group. He was met by his family and lawyer, his elder brother, Mahdi, said. Muhammad said he is fine. “I am just happy to be home,” he said during a telephone interview. His family had earlier said he was beaten and subjected to electric shocks while at the detention center but this was denied by military officials. Muhammad and his friend Al-Midzbar Bunajal, 24, were arrested in Boracay Island March 8. The two were about to enter the Muslim community in Sitio Ambulong in Barangay Manoc-Manoc when heavily armed men in plainclothes allegedly forced them into a vehicle and sped away. Muhammad was arrested because he was alleged to be “Abu Tony”, one of the 59 members of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group ordered arrested by the Pasig City Regional Trial Court for the 2001 Dos Palmas kidnapping. The AFP has also accused Muhammad of links to international terror groups including the Jemaah Islamiyah. Bunajal was released two days after their arrest because there was no charge against him, AFP spokesperson Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said in an earlier interview.

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Southeast Asia

Dulmatin eludes troops in Tawi-Tawi raid

2008-02-01

Government troops on Thursday swooped down the lair of Jemaah Islamiyah leader Dulmatin in Balimbing, Tawi-Tawi but failed to capture the notorious terrorist. The military, however, was able to kill a certain Radi Upao, allegedly a sub-leader of the Abu Sayyaf group who has a P2-million reward on his head for charges of kidnapping, serious illegal detention, and mass abduction, according to Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro. "Alias Dulmatin was able to escape," Bacarro said. In a dzBB report, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police director Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao identified Upao as the killer of missionary Reynaldo Roda. No casualty was reported on the government side, Bacarro said. Roda, a member of the Oblate of Mary Immaculate, was killed Jan. 15 after he fought his abductors who were dragging him to a motorboat in South Ubian town, also in Tawi-Tawi province. Dulmatin is a senior figure in the militant group JI and is one of the most wanted terrorists in Southeast Asia. He is believed to be with the Abu Sayyaf group since 2003 and was involved in providing explosive expertise and training other militants.

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Southeast Asia

3 Abu's nabbed in Sulu raid

2007-10-28

Government troops captured three suspected Abu Sayyaf members in Parang, Sulu last Wednesday. Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, Armed Forces of the Philippines Public Information Office (AFP-PIO) chief, said the three were not immediately identified. They were cornered by combined elements of the Air Force and the Light Reaction Co. (LRC) at their safehouse in Poblacion Parang at about 11 a.m. the other day. "The raid only lasted for about five minutes with negative resistance," Bacarro said. Aside from the arrest of the terrorists, the military raiding team recovered a caliber .30 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) with five magazines and bullets and a Springfield Garand rifle from the suspects’ safehouse. The involvement of the elite LRC that were trained by US military advisers was reportedly part of the operations to capture Indonesian terrorists Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both members of the international terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Bacarro refused to confirm or deny that targets of the latest operations were Dulmatin and Patek who are suspects in the bombings in Bali, Indonesia, where 202 people were killed on Oct. 12, 2002. The US government has offered a reward of $10 million for the capture of Dulmatin and $1 million for Patek. Dulmatin and Patek slipped into Mindanao in 2005 and established links with the Abu Sayyaf to escape the crackdown launched by Indonesian security forces against the suspects. The military said more than two dozen other Indonesian militants working with JI are hiding in Mindanao.

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Southeast Asia

Manila arrests 3 more militants on resort isle

2007-09-11

Philippine troops have arrested three Islamic militants on the resort island of Palawan and a spokesman said on Monday that they had been part of a cell plotting kidnappings and bombings in tourist areas. Troops arrested the three men on Sunday after four members of the cell were taken into custody last week. Military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said two suspected members of the radical Abu Sayyaf group had been arrested in the town of Espanola, which is dominated by members of the country’s Muslim minority. Hours later, military commandos stormed the house of a Muslim teacher in nearby Puerto Princesa City, seizing blasting caps, electrical wiring and chemicals used for making bombs, an army intelligence official said. The intelligence official said Ustadz Zainudin Gumubat, the head of a local madrasa called the al-Farouk Institute, was also arrested for links to Abu Sayyaf. The Abu Sayyaf, the smallest but deadliest Muslim rebel group in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country, is blamed for the killing of 100 people in a ferry bombing near Manila bay in 2004, the Philippines’ worst attack.

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Europe

Dutch arrest Philippine communist leader/exile

2007-08-30

Dutch police arrested Philippine Communist rebel leader Jose Maria Sison on Tuesday on suspicion of ordering the murder of two former allies in the Philippines, prosecutors said. Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New Peoples Army, was arrested in Utrecht, the central Dutch city where he has lived in exile for 20 years, they said. He was due to appear in a Hague court on Friday. ''The Communist leader is suspected of ordering from the Netherlands the murders of his former allies Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in the Philippines,'' said a statement from the Public Prosecutor's Office. Wretchard can fill in some details on the importance of this arrest, with a nice tribute to some of Sison's victims. Spokesman Wim de Bruin said Sison, 68, will be put on trial in the Netherlands, not the Philippines. ''There is no extradition request,'' De Bruin said. ''These are crimes that were committed in the Netherlands. Ordering murders is a crime according to Dutch law.'' Kintanar was gunned down in a Japanese restaurant in the Philippines on 23 January 2003. Tabara and his son-in-law Stephen Ong were shot dead in a parking lot as they got out of their car on 26 September 2004, the statement said. The Philippines Communist Party's armed wing claimed responsibility for the slayings. In Utrecht, teams of police raided the Sison's office, seizing computers, CDs, documents and books, said Aldo Gonzalez, who said he was questioned during the six-hour police operation at the office. Prosecutors said at least seven other addresses in Utrecht and the nearby town of Abcoude were searched as part of the investigation. Sison now calls himself a political consultant for the Dutch-based National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which has been involved in off-and-on peace negotiations for many years with Manila. Gonzalez, who said he was a staff member of the Front's negotiating team, dismissed the well-known allegations against Sison for the murders. ''They are all fabricated charges,'' he said. "Nope. Nope. Never happened." The European Union added Sison to its terror list in October 2002. He was placed on the list both as an individual and as a member of the New People's Army. Philippine military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro called Sison's arrest ''a triumph of justice.'' ''Ironic as it is, he is assured of his day in court - a right denied to the thousands of innocent victims of Communist kangaroo courts,'' Bacarro added. A prominent left-wing group in the Philippines, The New Patriotic Alliance or Bayan, condemned the arrest of Sison and raids on his group's offices as attacks on civil liberties. ''This bodes ill for the peace process,'' the group said. ''The arrest was most probably undertaken with the knowledge and prodding of the (Gloria Macapagal) Arroyo government which is out to sabotage all hopes for peace talks.''

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Southeast Asia

Philippines clashes kill 16 soldiers, dozens of militants

2007-08-19

Sixteen troops and dozens of Muslim militants were killed on Saturday in clashes between government forces and Al Qaeda-linked rebels on the southern island of Basilan, the military said. Nine soldiers were also wounded in the fighting that broke out in the jungle when Marines launched an attack on a rebel camp, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro. Bacarro said that the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf suffered about 30 wounded or dead but a military official in Basilan said as many as 42 members of the extremist group had been killed. An airforce MG-520 helicopter gunship, which was sent to back up the troops, crashed in the waters off Basilan, killing the pilot but the co-pilot was rescued by a navy boat, air force chief Lieutenant General Horacio Tolentino said. Tolentino said the helicopter crashed after suffering from unexplained vibrations but asserted that "it was not fired upon." "It was not hit," by enemy fire, he said. Earlier, a military source said the helicopter went down after the pilot was shot by the Abu Sayyaf. Details of Saturday's clashes remained sketchy because of a media blackout imposed by the military on Basilan, but sources said the gunbattle on the outskirts of the town of Unkaya Pukan turned into close-quarters combat. "The enemy suffered a lot of casualties. We are still trying to get the exact number but their casualties are heavy", regional military spokesman Major Eugene Batara said.

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Southeast Asia

Bali mastermind escapes Philippines blockade

2007-05-16

The suspected mastermind of the deadly 2002 Bali bombings appears to have given thousands of Philippine troops the slip, forcing them to shift their hunt to another island in the remote south of the country. Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro says there were strong indications Dulmatin, a leader of regional Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), had escaped Jolo island and moved to a smaller nearby island despite a naval blockade. "I cannot disclose his exact location ... "... damned if I know, really ..." ... but there had been sightings of Dulmatin somewhere in the western Mindanao area," Lt Col Bacarro told reporters, four days after the militant's four children were found on an island in the southernmost tip of the archipelago. "Our troops are confident they are on the right track." Dulmatin's children, aged from two to nine years, were discovered on Simunul island when soldiers raided a suspected rebel hideout after a tip from local residents. Dulmatin was not at the camp but army officials have said privately he was likely to have been nearby. Heroic Lion of Islam™ defending his kiddies ... The militant, who has a $US10 million bounty on his head from the US State Department, is a senior member of JI, a militant network that seeks an Islamic superstate in parts of south-east Asia. Philippine security officials have said Dulmatin and another suspect in the Bali bombing, Umar Patek, were part of a group of up to 10 JI members hiding on Jolo and training local Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf in bomb-making. Since August, about 8,000 soldiers, backed by US advisers and equipment, have been deployed on Jolo to flush out about 400 Abu Sayyaf rebels and their JI allies.

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Southeast Asia

Fighting spreads in southern Philippines, 21 dead

2007-04-17

Fighting between government forces and rogue Muslim rebels is spreading in the southern Philippines, shattering hopes for peace and threatening local support for a U.S.-backed campaign to flush out militants. A military spokesman said on Tuesday that army commandos were fanning out into the jungles of Jolo island, 600 miles (950 km) south of Manila, to hunt members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) after three days of pitched battle. "Our troops were now pursuing a separate group of MNLF rebels in another part of the island," Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro told reporters. Seventeen rebels, three soldiers and one civilian have been killed since renegade MNLF commander Habier Malik fired mortars at marines on Friday night, triggering fierce retaliation by the military, which dropped 250-pound bombs on his base. Nearly 8,500 families have fled the fighting and thousands crammed into schools and gymnasiums in downtown Jolo, relying on food rations from disaster agencies. In its campaign to destroy the Abu Sayyaf, the most militant of four Muslim rebel groups in the largely Catholic country, the military had been careful to avoid the use of air strikes in order to win round locals, tired of so-called "friendly fire". The troops' use of heavy bombs over the weekend and their targeting of the MNLF, which is seen as having more legitimacy than Abu Sayyaf, could undermine crucial local support. "It's going to complicate things because the MNLF probably have more local contacts, more traction with the locals then the Abu Sayyaf, who tend to be more thuggish," Tom Green, executive director of Pacific Strategies & Assessments, told Reuters. "Going against the MNLF means that a broader spectrum of people are affected because of blood ties, fathers, sons, uncles, brothers, that is going to complicate things." Ustadz Habier Malik, an MNLF field commander loyal to jailed Muslim leader Nur Misuari, fired mortar rounds on a military base in Panamao town on Friday to retaliate against an attack by soldiers on MNLF positions in Indanan. On Tuesday, the national police said seven people were taken captive by the Abu Sayyaf in Parang town, including six men working on a government road project. "The governor of Sulu was negotiating for the release of all seven hostages," said Joel Goltiao, police chief in the Muslim autonomous region, adding armed police officers were tracking down the Abu Sayyaf group behind the kidnapping.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine military gets ready for reprisal attacks

2007-01-22

MILITARY intelligence agents went on high alert yesterday to thwart revenge attacks by Muslim extremists after the government confirmed the death of the leader of the Abu Sayyaf group. Security forces were monitoring urban centers, especially in southern Mindanao, where members of the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah network are known to operate, a military spokesman said. “Intelligence [are] monitoring to prevent any retaliatory attacks,” Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said over dzBB radio. The warning came a day after the military announced that DNA tests carried out by US investigators confirmed that a body recovered in December in Jolo was that of Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani. But President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the military to be vigilant and deal the terrorists the “final blow”—even as the United States praised the Philippines for Janjalani’s death. “Perpetual vigilance is indeed the price of freedom, and we must never let our guard down,” Mrs. Arroyo said. “We must continue to destroy the spawning grounds of terror by a combined strategy of grassroots vigilance, economic development, interfaith solidarity and international cooperation,” she said. “The death of Khaddafy Janjalani is an important and positive step forward in the ultimate goal of eliminating the ruthless and dangerous Abu Sayyaf group, and in destroying its links with international terrorist groups such as the Jemaah Islamiyah, the US embassy in Manila said in a statement. “The US will continue to work with partners in the Philippines’ military, law enforcement, and national and local governments to bring terrorists to justice and to build peace and prosperity in Mindanao and throughout the Philippines,” the embassy said. Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon described the confirmation of Janjalani’s death as “hitting the jackpot,” and that was because it ended speculations that the body that the military had dug up in Jolo last month was not that of Southeast Asia’s most wanted man. Janjalani, also known as the Emir, became the overall leader of the Al Qaida-linked group when his brother, Abubakar Abdurajak Janjalani, was killed by police in 1998. The elder Janjalani founded the Abu Sayyaf in the early 1990s to fight for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao. At one time, he allegedly received financing from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network. Under the younger Janjalani’s leadership, the Abu Sayyaf adopted terror tactics, specializing in kidnappings for ransom and bombings. Together with another top Abu Sayyaf leader, Abu Solaiman, Janjalani masterminded the kidnapping deaths of two US citizens in 2001 and the firebombing of a ferry on Manila Bay that left over 100 dead. The military said it killed Solaiman last week, creating a “leadership vacuum,” Bacarro said. “They have a leadership vacuum now and are disorganized. We will take the advantage by keeping up the tempo and continuing the operations against them,” he said. He said it would take some time for the scattered Abu Sayyaf members to regroup under one command, but conceded desperate militants could stage random attacks. More than 5,000 troops are scouring the dense jungles of Jolo for remnants of the Abu Sayyaf, who are also believed to be protecting wanted Jemaah Islamiyah bomb experts Dulmatin and Umar Patek, wanted for the October 2002 bombings in Bali. The Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah are both on the US watch list of foreign terrorist organizations. US forces are providing intelligence backup to their Filipino counterparts in Jolo.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine troops kill 10 militants after Arroyo vow

2007-01-18

MANILA (Reuters) - U.S.-trained Philippine soldiers killed 10 Islamic rebels in fresh fighting in the south on Thursday as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo vowed to put down the militants "with a hand of steel". Lieutenant-Colonel Ariel Caculitan, a Marine spokesman, said 10 Abu Sayyaf militants and three soldiers were killed in a hour-long gunbattle on the island of Jolo, where most of the militant group has taken shelter. Two rebels were captured. About 100 U.S. military advisers are on Jolo to provide intelligence and training to the 7,000 Philippine troops combating the Abu Sayyaf, the most deadly militant group in the country. The group, allied to the regional Jemaah Islamiah, is accused of deadly bomb attacks and kidnapping and beheading tourists, including Westerners. It was the latest success reported by the military against Abu Sayyaf. On Wednesday, troops claimed they had killed Jainal Antel Sali, alias Abu Sulaiman, one of the top five leaders of the group in a gunbattle at a jungle camp on Jolo. A number of other Abu Sayyaf senior commanders have been killed in recent weeks, including Binang Sali, considered to be one of the group's spiritual leaders. "It's not the end-game but it will take the sting out of their tail," said a Western diplomat of the string of military successes. "It's breaking down their capacity to function as a group and concentrate on attacks, but the Abu Sayyaf will continue to exist in some form or another." Arroyo met senior army commanders at the main military camp in Manila to commend them for the killing of Abu Sulaiman. "This government is determined to finish the job with a hand of steel against evil," Arroyo said in a statement. "The relentless pressure we have applied in the field is taking its toll and we will keep it up until all terrorists and their clandestine cells are accounted for." "Then we can hand over Mindinao over to the Moro Liberation Front so I can get my Nobel Peace Prize" The military said the pressure on the group would continue. "Right now, they are suffering from a leadership vacuum and they are now disorganised," said Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro. "We will keep up the tempo. "We cannot give you a timeframe but the armed forces of the Philippines, by direction of the president, is really bent on destroying the Abu Sayyaf group." Abu Sayyaf has only 400 or so members, most of them trapped on Jolo island, but it has been held responsible for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of a ferry near Manila Bay in 2004 that killed at least 100 people.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine troops overrun Muslim militant camp on southern island

2007-01-16

Troops battled al-Qaida-linked Muslim extremists on a southern Philippine island, capturing a rebel camp and killing one militant, officials said Tuesday. Army soldiers fought 60 Abu Sayyaf members in mountainous Talipao town on Jolo island on Monday, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said. Talipao is 950 kilometers (590 miles) south of Manila. The clash with the group of Abu Solaiman, a senior Abu Sayyaf leader on a U.S. list of terrorists, also left two soldiers wounded. "We believe that Abu Solaiman was wounded," Bacarro added without elaborating. The U.S. government is offering a U.S.$5 million (€3.86 million) reward for Solaiman's capture. Bacarro said troops overran the militant's jungle camp, where soldiers found 17 bunkers and bomb-making tools. Last week, troops killed senior Abu Sayyaf militant Binang Sali in a gunfight in Jolo's Patikul town. Officials said Sali led an urban terror unit of the Muslim extremist group. Earlier this month, soldiers clashed with militants aboard a motorboat off nearby Tawi Tawi province, 1,050 kilometers (656 miles) southwest of Manila, killing Gufran, an Indonesian terrorist suspect who goes by one name, and five Abu Sayyaf members. Gufran was a key aide of Dulmatin, a top Indonesian terror suspect who has been hunted by troops in a monthslong U.S.-backed offensive on southern Jolo island, officials said. Gufran's reported death bolsters military reports that Indonesian militants have taken refuge in the southern Philippines — scene of a decades-old Islamic separatist insurgency.

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