US forces back in combat zone to help AFP

ISABELA CITY – American military paramedics helped extricate seven Filipino soldiers wounded in a clash with Abu Sayyaf terrorists on Basilan island yesterday.

Reporters also saw a US Army Humvee with five heavily armed US Special Forces troops speeding out of a Filipino Army brigade headquarters here at noon as fighting raged near the town of Lantawan on the island’s west side.

Filipino military spokesmen insisted no US troops took part in fighting the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

Troops from the Philippine Army’s elite Scout Ranger Ragiment ran into an Abu Sayyaf unit in a remote village near Lantawan mid-morning, triggering heavy fighting that left seven Scout Rangers wounded, military Southern Command spokesman Capt. Noel Detoyato said.

Filipino and American paramedics aboard two Philippine military UH-1H helicopters extricated the wounded soldiers near the combat zone, he added.

"They (US troops) responded when the operating troops sought assistance, but there were no Americans involved in the encounter," Detoyato said, adding the medical evacuation missions were part of the joint US-Philippine military exercises.

Reporters on the scene said fully armed American soldiers were seen riding with local soldiers to the scene of the fighting.

An AFP reporter saw a US Humvee with a machine gun mounted on it speed out of the 103rd Philippine Army Brigade camp at noon, carrying five US soldiers with assault rifles and bulletproof vests alongside three Filipino troops.

Detoyato insisted that the American troops had "no participation" in the Lantawan clashes, which continued into the afternoon after spilling out into two nearby villages.

Some 160 US Special Forces personnel are in Basilan to help train and advise local troops in hunting down the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group with links to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

The gunmen have been holding hostage an American missionary couple and a Filipino nurse seized in a kidnapping spree that began in May.

Scout Ranger staff officer Capt. Rommel Pagayon said the soldiers inflicted an undetermined number of casualties on the Abu Sayyaf and recovered some of the gunmen’s personal belongings, including women’s undergarments.

Pagayon said this could be an indication that one of the two female hostages was with the group.

The two Americans, Martin and Gracia Burnham and the Filipina, Deborah Yap, were seized in the latest kidnapping spree of the Abu Sayyaf which was launched in May last year.

Last week, Maluso town Mayor Sakib Salajin said the three hostages were sighted in Lantawan town by local residents.

The Abu Sayyag gunmen, notorious for kidnapping foreigners and Christians and holding them for ransom, have evaded military pursuit for almost a year in the thick jungles of Basilan.

As part of the international campaign against terrorism, Washington has deployed some 660 US troops in the southern Philippines until July to help train local forces in battling terror groups like the Abu Sayyaf.

The Americans are not supposed to engage in combat but can fire back in self defense. — AFP, Paolo Romero, Roel Pareño