U.S. boosts Philippines presence

More U.S. troops have arrived in the Philippines for another round of joint war games

FUEGO-FUEGO BEACH, Philippines -- The U.S. has stepped up its global attack on terrorism with the arrival of more than 300 additional military personnel on the southern Philippine island of Basilan.

The 340 military engineers arrived on Basilan Saturday morning, bringing the total U.S. presence on the island to around 1,000 troops.

The latest deployment also means that total U.S. troop strength in the Philippines will reach nearly 4,000 for the over the next three weeks, Associated Press reports.

About 2,700 Americans began arriving Friday for a joint exercise in the northern Philippines to help the Pacific nation improve its defenses and ability to participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions.

The engineers on Basilan, meanwhile, will help build roads and air strips for the impoverished island which has become a stronghold for the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf guerilla group.

Basilan is a mountainous, jungle-clad island with a large Muslim population of more than 300,000 in the predominantly Catholic Philippines.

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"We are now in the face of eliminating terrorism with this developmental effort," Philippine armed forces southern command chief Lieutenant General Roy Cimatu told reporters Saturday.

The U.S. has also been holding joint war games in the southern Philippines in a bid to crack down on Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for its brutal kidnapping and "hostage for ransom" tactics in the former U.S. colony.

The group have been holding a U.S. missionary couple and a Filipina nurse hostage for more than 10 months.

The fresh batch of U.S. troops were unloading heavy construction equipment like bulldozers and graders on the island amid tight security provided by U.S. Marines Saturday.

Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hearnsterger, commander of the engineering brigade, told Reuters news service: "We are here to rehabilitate some road projects and other infrastructure. This is our way of helping to eliminate terrorism."

The engineers are expected to stay in the Philippines for about three months.

However critics of the joint war games are suggesting, however, the engineers' arrival foreshadows an extended presence of U.S. troops in the Philippines.

"There is more than meets the eye in their arrival," congresswoman Loretta Ann Rosales told CNN earlier this week.

"The civic projects are part of an effort by the U.S. to re-establish the hold they lost in the Philippines in 1991," she said.

The Philippines Senate voted that year to dismantle U.S. military bases.

Rosales said the U.S. was intent on "expanding its defense perimeter in the region," amid an ongoing crackdown on al Qaeda supporters in Southeast Asia.

Second front

But a poll published Saturday suggest there is strong support for the U.S. presence in the Philippines.

Seventy-five percent of 1,200 people surveyed nationwide last month by the respected Social Weather Stations (SWS) polling group supported the deployment of US troops in areas such as Basilan.

The Philippines is considered the "second front" in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

"I think September 11 really broadened, brought into vivid relief what we were talking about in pretty theoretical terms three years ago," the head of the U.S. forces in the Pacific Admiral Dennis Blair told CNN earlier this week.

Self-defense

"Any time you have a part of the world where lawless groups operate, all sorts of bad things happen. Drugs happen, guns happen, ransom happens, piracy happens, and yes, terrorists, terrorism can find a home," he said.

Because of political sensitivities in the Philippines, the number of troops was initially kept to a specific number -- a total of 660 -- armed but able to shoot only in self-defense.

Halfway through the mission, the Americans have helped stabilize what was once a lawless area.

Residents now say they want U.S. forces to stay beyond the original 6-month deadline.

"We're evaluating that now. We're looking at what else needs to be done. I think that we'll be here for months, not years," Blair said, adding that the operations were "going very, very well."