US Deploys Troops to Philippines
From the Associated Press:
Washington — Hundreds of U.S. special operations troops will soon join Philippine forces in combat operations against Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern Philippines, defence officials said Thursday.
The American and Philippine governments agreed to an arrangement that will place U.S. troops in direct combat roles against the Abu Sayyaf for the first time since the U.S. military began advising the Philippine armed forces in counterterrorism tactics last year, the officials said.
The deal marks a major escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Philippines.
About 350 U.S. special operations forces, mostly Army Green Berets, will be involved in the offensive in the Sulu Archipelago, with much of the effort focused on the island of Jolo, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. They will be supported by about 400 more U.S. troops based to the north in the port city of Zamboanga.
Read the whole article here (or on any newspaper's site, most probably):
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/.../International
This is the type of operation the US military should be engaging in - small unit special forces actions against actual terrorists, not bombing Saddam Hussein and his 15 barrels of harmless anthrax buried in the desert with hundreds of thousands of civillians in the way.
For those that don't know, Abu Sayyef are real bastards on a scale Al Qaeda never got around to being (no disrespect intended). They've been linked to the Bali bombings, kidnapping, raping and torturing women and children, and several attacks against civillians in the Philippines, including public bombings. Their main beef seems to be that the Philippine government isn't Islamic and they don't like it.
As is usually the case in politics, the government's hands aren't clean, but that doesn't excuse these guys at all. The Arroyo (and her predecessors') government hasn't proven very effective in getting rid of them, so if W's going to be throwing his military around at the Islamic world, he may as well go after the real bastards. Well, at least the ones outside of Saudi Arabia that he can actually get at.