US set to train second batch of RP troops

US advisers will begin training a second batch of Philippine anti-terrorist soldiers in January, a top military general said yesterday.

They will be used in the fight against Muslim gunmen holding hostage an American couple and a Filipina nurse in the south.

The main bulk of the US advisers will arrive on Jan. 15 in Zamboanga City, where the Philippine military maintains its largest facility outside the capital, Armed Forces’ Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu said.

An advance party has already arrived to set up communication facilities in the Southern Command, said Cimatu, who refused to give further details for security reasons.

US advisers in July trained the first batch of a Filipino "light reaction company" at an Army boot camp in the country’s North.

The group has since been deployed to Basilan to join some 5,000 other soldiers hunting down the Abu Sayyaf group.

The Abu Sayyaf is a small group of self-styled Islamic fighters with links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. They are holding hostage Martin and Gracia Burnham of Kansas and a Filipina nurse in the jungle-clad terrain of Basilan island.

Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Emmanuel Tedosio said last Friday that troops were conducting pursuit operations despite the holidays, but "unfortunately there are no new leads."

He said the thick vegetation and the unsupportive civilian population in Basilan were among the difficulties the Army faced.

"It’s a very vast vegetated and mountainous area and it’s very hard to corner them in a small area," Teodosio said. "They keep on moving."

Officials have said they were hopeful all the hostages could be freed by New Year after the military missed a self-imposed Christmas Day deadline.

Teodosio said the Philippine military welcomed the US help, but ruled out participation of US special forces in combat operations.

"We need all the help we can get. We should give credit to the altruism of the (US) government. We might need material support, but we don’t really need at the moment combatants from any foreign country to help us in this job," Teodosio said.

In another development, the military captured one member of a Muslim kidnapping gang that is holding an Italian priest hostage in the southern province of Lanao del Norte.

Brig. Gen. Alfonso Dagudag said the suspect was caught hiding in a tunnel in a mountainous area on Wednesday. A rifle was recovered from the suspect.

However there was no sign of the kidnapped priest, Father Giuseppe Pierantoni, who was seized by the Pentagon gang from his rectory in Zamboanga del Sur province in October.

Dagudag, who is commanding the forces hunting for Pierantoni, said they believe the ailing priest is being moved from place to place in Lanao del Norte. –Paolo Romero