Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines
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This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
| Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the War on Terrorism | |||||||||
 U.S. Special Forces with members of the Philippine Army |
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| Combatants | |||||||||
| al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf |  Philippines United States |
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| Commanders | |||||||||
| Khadaffy Janjalani† | Donny Wurster | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 9,000 | 2,000+ | ||||||||
| Casualties | |||||||||
| 550 killed, 137 captured | 14 US soldiers killed, 282 Philippine soldiers killed | ||||||||
Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines (OEF-P) is part of Operation Enduring Freedom and the U.S. War on Terrorism. About 350 U.S. special operations personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force are working with Philippine soldiers in the Sulu Archipelago. Another 750 U.S. soldiers are providing logistics support from the headquarters in Zamboanga on Mindanao Island.
Deployment began January 2002 and involved more than 1,200 members of United States Special Operations Command, Pacific (SOCPAC), headed by Brig. Gen. Donny Wurster. SOCPAC's deployable joint task force HQ, Joint Task Force 510 (JTF 510), directed and carried out the operation.
The mission was to advise and assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines in combating terrorism in the Philippines. Much of the mission (Exercise Balikatan 02-1) took place on the island of Basilan, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf. The mission is not to be confused with Balikatan 02-2, which took place April 2002 and was purely a training exercise. It is estimated by the US Military that the number of Abu Sayyaf Group members on Basilan Island has decreased to approximately 80 from a prior high of 700 or more [1].
Within OEF-Philippines was another project called Operation Smiles, an extensive program to provide medical care for local civilians of Basilan where the fighting had occurred. Operation Smiles included personnel from the Philippine Government as well as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), JTF 510 and non governmental organizations. Among the results of this operation was the creation of 14 schools, seven clinics, three hospitals and over 20 fresh water wells. From the beginning of the project it had provided care and assistance to an estimated 18,000 Filipinos. PDF
In 2005 and 2006 renewed fighting between the government forces and Abu Sayyaf guerillas allied with the New People's Army (NPA) hit the south of the Philippines. By the end of 2006 hundreds of people were killed, mostly guerillas and soldiers. At the end of 2006 the NPA is estimated to have 7,000 fighters while Abu Sayyaf has 2,000.
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[edit] Combatants
[edit] Armed Forces of the Philippines
Elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines are deployed in Mindanao to deal with Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah.
[edit] United States Armed Forces
The United States has provided the Philippine government with advisors, equipment and financial support to counter Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah.
[edit] Abu Sayyaf
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is deemed a "foreign terrorist organization" by the United States government. Specifically, it is an Islamist separatist group based in and around the southern islands of the Republic of the Philippines, primarily Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao.
Since inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and extortion in their fight for an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, with a claimed overarching goal of creating a Pan-Islamic superstate across the Malay portions of Southeast Asia, spanning, from east to west, the large island of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago (Basilan and Jolo islands), the large island of Borneo (Malaysia and Indonesia), the South China Sea, and the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar).
The name of the group is Arabic for Father (Abu) of the Sword (Sayyaf).
[edit] Jemaah Islamiyah
Jemaah Islamiyah is a militant Islamic terrorist organization dedicated to the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy in Southeast Asia, in particular Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, the south of Thailand and the Philippines.
Jemaah Islamiyah is thought to have killed hundreds of civilians and is suspected of having executed the Bali car bombing on October 12, 2002 in which suicide bombers killed 202 people, mostly Australian tourists, and wounded many in a nightclub. After this attack, the U.S. State Department designated Jemaah Islamiyah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Jemaah Islamiyah is also suspected of carrying out the Zamboanga bombings, the Rizal Day Bombings, the 2004 Jakarta embassy bombing and the 2005 Bali terrorist bombing.
Financial links between Jemaah Islamiyah and other terrorist groups, such as Abu Sayyaf and al-Qaeda, have been found to exist [2]. Jemaah Islamiyah means "Islamic Group" and is often abbreviated JI.
[edit] U.S. Casualties
On February 22, 2002, ten U.S. soldiers died when their MH-47 crashed at sea in the southern Philippines.
On October 2, 2002, one U.S. soldier was killed in an explosion at an open-air market outside the gate of Camp Enrile Malagutay, in Zamboanga.
On June 30, 2004, a U.S. soldier committed suicide in a hotel in Manila.
On October 14, 2005, a U.S. soldier was killed in an accident in Makati City.
On February 15, 2007, a U.S. Marine was killed in an accident in Jolo.
