The 660 soldiers began arriving earlier this year under a program to train Philippines troops in the pursuit of guerrillas in the Abu Sayyaf organization. The deployment, heralded as a "second front" in the "war on terror," placed U.S. military personnel on Philippine soil for the first time since massive U.S. air and naval bases were closed in the early 1990s after facing years of protests. Helicopters are ferrying in tons of supplies and equipment, as the troops reinforce their military outpost of Camp Uno on Basilan Island.

U.S. and Philippine government officials announced in late March that they expect the U.S. deployment to last beyond the six months announced in February when the operation began. "We're looking at prolonged training," said a Bush administration spokesperson.

Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, is pressing for 300 more troops to be sent to the island. Blair claims that the soldiers are needed to construct helicopter landing zones for Philippine troops, along with other projects.

The proposal "is meeting some resistance from Manila," reported the April 11 Wall Street Journal. According to the big-business paper, Philippines president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo "is concerned that adding more troops...might spark additional protests from Filipino Muslims who make up about 8 percent of the country's 80 million people. Earlier this week Philippine police fired into the air to disperse demonstrators protesting the U.S. military intervention.

"The large number of U.S. troops," added the Journal, "would likely give added fuel to Muslim critics in the Philippines and Indonesia who have maintained that the U.S. wants to use Mindanao as a base for military operations across the region."  
 
 
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