Filipinos and G.I.'s Falter in Effort to Free Hostages
By RAYMOND BONNER with ERIC SCHMITT
ANILA, March 1 — Plans to use military force to free an American missionary couple kidnapped by Muslim extremists in the southern Philippines have been complicated by the captors' tight control of the hostages and the inexperience of the Philippine military in conducting night raids, senior military officials of both countries say.
Some 80 armed kidnappers, members of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist gang, are vastly outnumbered on tiny Basilan island by more than 5,000 Philippine troops and scores of American Special Forces. The troops have the captors and hostages under regular surveillance, a senior American officer said.
But military commanders express concern that a joint Philippine- American commando raid now could jeopardize the lives of the two Americans, Martin and Gracia Burnham of Rose Hill, Kan., as well as a Filipina nurse, Eldiborah Yap.
When the guerrillas are on the move during the day, Mr. Burnham is forced to carry a recoilless rifle, a senior American official said. At night, he is handcuffed to a tree. The Burnhams have been in captivity in the jungle for eight months, and in photographs allowed out by the guerrillas, they look thin and weak.
"The primary concern is the safety of the hostages and freeing them uninjured," said a Bush administration official who is monitoring the operation. "By the same token, it's very difficult when the captors have taken steps to make it harder to rescue the Burnhams."
Another challenge is training Philippine forces for night operations, which American troops prefer for hostage rescues. American forces are also coping with a lack of coordination among the Philippine forces on Basilan who are jockeying for a lead role in rescuing the Burnhams.
Officially, the more than 600 American forces here are part of a "training exercise" to improve the Philippine military's ability to fight terrorists. But in many ways, some visible, most not, this has all the earmarks of a combat operation intended to free the hostages and wipe out Abu Sayyaf in the process, officials here, in Washington and on Basilan island say.
This training mission is in an actual war zone; most others are held in simulated battle conditions. It is scheduled to last six months; most training missions last about four weeks, officials said. Here there is also a real enemy, Abu Sayyaf, hiding in the dense jungles.
"This is a radical departure from any previous exercises, and I was participating in them as a second lieutenant," Rodolfo G. Biazon, a retired five-star Philippine general, said Thursday. "There is live ammo, a live enemy, not a hypothetical one, and a real live mission."
The goal to free the Burnhams comes as the Bush administration has adopted a policy that requires the federal government to review every kidnapping of Americans abroad for possible action. The administration is also under growing pressure to respond to the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, in Pakistan.
While Philippine military officials say they plan to rescue the hostages, with American assistance, Pentagon officials say an operation is not imminent. The full extent of the American role is considered highly secret.
The Americans have started gathering intelligence, using Navy P-3 reconnaissance planes and sophisticated ground sensors that penetrate dense jungles, Pentagon officials said. The pace of operations has quickened in recent days. On Tuesday night, two AH-60 Blackhawk helicopters arrived in Zamboanga, the mission headquarters on Mindanao. The aircraft will ferry American soldiers from the base to nearby Basilan island.
The Bush administration was prepared to send troops to battle Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. But the Philippine Constitution, laws and domestic politics made that impossible, so Philippine leaders came up with the idea of a training exercise.
Underscoring the two government's different objectives, lawyers from both countries negotiated language to describe the exercise and the rules that govern it. American forces will be allowed to fire only in self-defense. But American and Philippine officers said the American troops will undoubtedly come under fire, making it likely that they will will engage in combat.
The Philippine commander of the joint operation, Gen. Emmanuel Teodosio, said he fully expected American combat casualties during the exercise, which is scheduled to end in June. "Considering the number of American forces and their mission, it is bound to happen," he said.
Commanders say most of the actual fighting will be left to Philippine soldiers, primarily the Scout Rangers, who have their base in a clearing amidst palm and rubber trees on Basilan island. Scores of American Special Operations forces that have arrived in the last two weeks will provide intelligence gathered by sophisticated equipment they have brought.
Some of the equipment is so highly classified that neither the Americans nor the Filipinos would talk about it, and the Americans plan to take it when they leave, Philippine military officers and civilian officials said.
Philippine and American officials say accurate, reliable intelligence is one of the greatest needs of the Philippine Army. The army has been forced to look for the guerrillas "manually," as one army captain put it. They look in this valley, then on that mountain, but they cannot look at both at once, he said.
With American planes and satellites that listen in on Abu Sayyaf radio and mobile telephone conversations, that has changed dramatically.
"I have seen on the screen in the war room, a picture of the whole island," said a senior Philippine military commander, with more than 20 years experience. "Our operating troops will now have a more complete picture of what is going on in the entire island."