Philippines-US troops conduct joint mock assault operations

MANILA, Philippines — A contingent of Philippine Marines and American troops conducted joint mock assault operations against an “enemy” position in Hawaii as part of the ongoing Rim of the Pacific Exercises 2018 (RIMPAC 2018) military exercises.

Commander Jonathan Zata, Philippine Navy spokesman, said the joint assault is a RIMPAC 2018’s-designed Force Integration Training with Filipino Marines participating in the world’s biggest naval exercises held in the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii.

Twenty-six nations, 47 surface ships, five submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are currently participating in the biennial RIMPAC.

The Philippine Navy deployed two of its newly-acquired warships to the world’s biggest land and naval drill exercise launched last June 27 and will run until Aug. 2 in Hawaii and Southern California.

Zata said the assault exercise was conducted at the Pohakuloa training area in Hawaii. 

Back in Manila, Filipino and US soldiers just concluded several days of naval drills off San Fernando, La Union and Zambales.

Dubbed as “Sama-Sama,” the joint naval exercises are the low-key version of the already scrapped combined Amphibious Landing Exercises (Phiblex) between Filipino and US Marines following downscaling of the yearly joint US-Philippine Balikatan exercises as ordered by President Duterte.

The exercises in Hawaii coincided with last Thursday’s courtesy call of Rear Admiral Murray Joe Tynch III, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Task Force 73 on Philippine Navy (PN) officials in Manila.

“The courtesy call highlighted the strong US-Philippine relationships, especially with regard to maritime security, global campaign against terrorism and disaster relief and crisis response,” Zata said.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana left yesterday for Australia to speak before local and foreign defense security experts attending next week’s 4th Australia Security Summit in Canberra.

Department of National Defense (DND) sources said Lorenzana was among the six foreign speakers to talk on the continuing security challenges that destabilize national and regional peace and safety.

“As to what the secretary will be actually discussing with his Australian counterpart and local and foreign defense security audience, we are not fully informed, except that he was invited to the event as one of the keynote speakers,” sources said.

DND spokesman Arsenio Andolong confirmed that Lorenzana would attend the security summit in Australia with the theme: “Detect, Deter, Destroy.”

But a senior military official said Lorenzana is expected to discuss the international cooperation in combating global terrorism.

“For sure he will be speaking more of the Philippines’ Marawi experience and the role of partner-states like Australia in ending the most violent conflict to hit the country after World War II,” the official said.

He was referring to the Islamic State-inspired Maute terrorists who, along with their foreign jihadists cohorts, attacked and occupied Marawi City in May last year, triggering five months of urban fighting.

At the height of the conflict, Australia and the US military sent their P3 Orion surveillance planes to Marawi to assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in monitoring and tracking movements and pinpointing, from the air, the exact locations of terrorists then holed up on high-rise buildings and a network of underground tunnels inside the Islamic City.

When the fighting ended, Australia committed more than 70 troops to the Philippines to help train and share with their Filipino counterparts their experience in fighting terrorists in urban warfare in Iraq.

The security summit’s organizers, meanwhile, said the shifting regional and global political alliances, sophisticated new tactics of trans-boundary criminal and terrorist operations – online and offline – and the incessant rise of violent extremism across the region culminates in a complex, volatile climate that needs to be addressed globally.

“It can only be addressed if we make innovation – efforts in technological investments, strategy and execution – our priority,” organizers of the event said on its webspage.

Next week’s security summit is expected to draw more than 300 participants, 50 local speakers, six key international speakers to include Lorenzana and 25 partners from the defense security sectors and the academe across the globe.

Latest strategies that keeps Australia safe, requirements and future initiatives in Australia and globally from security specialists as they deal with acts of terrorism and crime across the world would be tackled.