US soldiers involved in anti-terror action in the Philippines could face a larger opponent as besieged Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas enlist other Muslim guerrilla groups, a Filipino military official said today.
Up to 160 elite Special Forces soldiers among a larger group of 660 US servicemen are set to deploy on the southern island of Basilan towards the end of a six-month joint military training exercise aimed to help local soldiers crush the Abu Sayyaf.
In past operations, larger guerrilla groups have come to the aid of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim rebel group which is holding two US Christian missionaries and a Filipina hostage in Basilan, Brig Gen Edilberto Adan warned.
There are no more than 300 Abu Sayyaf men there, but they are "reinforceable by other elements", Brig Gen Adan said.
He told reporters about 1,000 of the 12,500 members of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) operate on Basilan, aside from 500 members of the Moro National Liberation Front, a second separatist group that signed a peace treaty with Manila in 1996. Many of the ex-rebels had not disarmed, Brig Gen Adan said.
"The nature of the Abu Sayyaf group [problem] in Basilan is such there are other armed groups in the area. They could be the MILF who are scattered in the island, who from time to time reinforce the Abu Sayyaf," he said.
AFP