Replies

...we will root them out wherever they hide.......

Go Bush! Go troops!

Pretty soon........all of our troops will be gone......
great.......NOT! ........then what UN Peacekeepers here to the rescue.....I think not.......
remember after 9-11........NATO planes "watched" over our air space for us...........the end is near!!!!!!!!

I think that this is a big deal that the Phillippines are letting us come in, especially under our own command.
I seem to remember that they had some specific legal prohibition against this very kind of action.

Here we go again ...

"Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success." -President George W. Bush

Do you suppose this action will result in the U.S. Army re-adopting a .45 calliber pistol???

Why the hell do we need to do this? Doesn't the Phillippine army have enough troops for gods sake?

GLOBAL JIHAD
U.S. troops headed
for Philippines fight
Terrorists say they prepare 'welcome party' for soldiers

Posted: February 20, 2003
9:16 p.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – On the day Pentagon officials announced the U.S. will send nearly 2,000 troops to the Philippines to fight Muslim extremists in the southern part of the country, the Islamic terrorist group Abu Sayyaf said it was preparing a "welcome party" for American soldiers.

The U.S. troops will take part in a joint operation with the Philippine military in what appears to be a significant escalation in the war against terror even as a full-scale war on Iraq appears imminent and the search for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters continues in Afghanistan.

The plan calls for 750 American ground troops, including about 350 Special Operations Forces, to conduct combat patrols in the jungles of Sulu Province with Philippine forces. In addition, about 1,000 Marines armed with Cobra attack helicopters and Harrier AV-8B attack planes will stand ready on ships offshore to act as a quick-response force, provide logistics and medical support.

A military assessment team, the vanguard of the larger combat force, is expected to arrive in the Philippines in the next few days, and the full American force could be conducting combat operations against Abu Sayyaf within a month, a Pentagon official said. The American forces will be led by Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Weber, the commander of the Third Marine Division in Okinawa.

Meanwhile, Abu Sayyaf says it is ready for the troops they assumed were coming to the Philippines to take part only in war games on Sulu Island, according to Abu Soliman, who spoke to the local press, according to IslamOnline.

"We will welcome them in our little way ... and that could be big," he said.

The U.S. is now linking Abu Sayyaf to Jemaah Islamiah of Indonesia, a group believed to be responsible for the bombing of Bali in October that left some 200 people dead.

In a phone interview with IslamOnline, Soliman warned of a "sure surprise" awaiting the American troops.

He did not give details but said the group was prepared for combat with U.S. troops.

"The facts of history are on our side, and we don't mind being branded as terrorists," said Soliman, who intelligence reports say serves as Abu Sayyaf's operation officer.

The deployment culminates months of planning and coordination between Adm. Thomas Fargo, the commander of American forces in the Pacific, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top Philippine officials, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Rumsfeld briefed President Bush on the operation last week, Pentagon officials said.

The combat operation, which goes well beyond a continuing set of training missions throughout the Philippines, reflects the Pentagon's growing concern that militant Islamic networks pose an increasing threat to Americans and American interests in Southeast Asia. It also indicates that the training mission with Philippine forces last year on Basilan failed to quell the Muslim guerrilla movement.

Sixteen people were killed in a series of violent episodes in the southern Philippines the past two days. In one incident, about 50 armed men raided a remote village in the dead of night and massacred 14 civilians, three of them children, the military said.

Officials said armed men entered a village in Mindanao Wednesday night and, without warning, raked at least 10 houses with gunfire and set them ablaze. Investigators said the suspects had rounded up the residents and opened fire at them, killing many on the spot.

Aside from the 14 casualties, three civilians were wounded and three remained missing, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero, said. The massacre took place in Tubod, a village in the Zamboanga peninsula 465 miles south of Manila. Lucero said the military had yet to establish the identities of the victims.

Yesterday, an explosion in a public market in the town of Kabacan, about 500 miles south of Manila, killed one man and injured five people. Officials said the bomb might have exploded prematurely, killing the bomber.

In the afternoon, a bomb went off outside the airport in Cotabato City, 548 miles south of Manila, killing one person and wounding six inside a restaurant. Officials said the bomb was in a car parked in front of the restaurant about 55 yards from the airport's entrance. The blast also started a fire that gutted the rest of the restaurant and a row of establishments.

No group has taken responsibility for the massacre and the bombings. The military was quick, however, to blame the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Muslim group that has been fighting for a separate Islamic state for 25 years.

Let's just remember the Philippenes are islands, and drain their islamist swamps accordingly.

This is interesting because it's gotten little publicity up to now. The switch to accompanying the Filipinos on combat operations is a very big deal -- this is not just us helping our pals, it's us going after Muslim rebels. Why would we do that?

The reasonable explanation is that they're involved in global terrorism -- most likely in the sense of providing various forms of terrorist training to Al Qaeda.