GIs join Filipinos in battle

WASHINGTON -- The United States will send more than 1,700 troops to the Philippines in the next few weeks to fight Muslim extremists in the southern part of the country, opening a new front in the fight against terrorism, Pentagon officials said on Thursday.

A six-month training mission in the Philippines last year was limited to 1,300 U.S. troops, including 160 Special Forces soldiers. The troops had only an advisory role and were permitted to fire only in self-defense in the rare cases when they accompanied Philippine soldiers. But this mission will be a combat operation with no such restrictions on American and Philippine troops serving side by side.

Under the plan, about 750 ground troops, including 350 Special Operations Forces, will conduct or support combat patrols in the rugged jungles of Sulu Province. In addition, about 1,000 Marines, armed with Cobra attack helicopters and Harrier AV-8B attack planes, will stand ready aboard two ships offshore to

act as a quick-response force and provide logistics and medical support. The first troops are expected to arrive within days, officials said.

The operation will last as long as necessary "to disrupt and destroy" the estimated 250 members of the extremist group Abu Sayyaf, one official said, and marks a sharp escalation in the war against terror as the United States builds up for a possible war with Iraq and continues to hunt al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Philippine and American officials agreed to launch the joint offensive now for several reasons, officials said. Negotiations between the two countries have been under way for months, but Abu Sayyaf's repeated attacks and the bombing death of an American Green Beret last October spurred President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to hammer out an aggressive plan.

Dispatching American commandos to the jungles of the southern Philippines comes at a convenient moment for the Pentagon officials, who have sought to show the American military can fight a war with Iraq and still carry out a global hunt for terrorists.

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