Philippines (2012 onwards, inc OEF)

[Bill Moore]

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/...and+Stripes%29

Philippine president blames US for Middle East violence

The new Philippine president blamed U.S. intervention for the bloody conflicts in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries in his latest criticism of Manila's closest security ally.

The new President appears ready to walk his own path. Very direct, and not relying on conventional wisdom. In some ways he seems to have some pragmatic ideas, and in other areas he appears to be grasping at straws. It could be another interesting few years in the Philippines.

They forced their way to Iraq ... look at Iraq now, look what happened to Libya, look what happened to Syria," he told the Muslim community in southern Davao city in a ceremony marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. "People are being annihilated there including children."

The former Davao mayor has said he would be a leftist president who would chart a foreign policy not dependent on the United States.

He has pointed out the benefits of nurturing friendly relations with Beijing, including a Chinese offer of financing railway projects in the Philippines. The country has had frosty ties with China under Duterte's predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, who bolstered security ties with the U.S. to deter China's assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea.

[AdamG]

(CNN)The Philippines top diplomat has told a forum in Washington that his country "cannot forever be the little brown brothers of America."
Philippines Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay made the comments after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington Thursday, during which he described the US relationship with the Philippines as cooperative and symbiotic.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/16/asia/l...hilippines-us/

[SWJ Blog]

ISIS's Alarming Inroads in the Southern Philippines

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Philippines Peace Process: Duterte Playing For High Stakes

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Philippine's President Duterte to US Troops: Leave Mindanao or Abus Will Kill You

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[AdamG]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, during a visit to Japan, told Japanese and Philippine business leaders Wednesday that he wants foreign troops -- read U.S. troops -- out of his country, possibly within two years.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/articl...of-his-country

[AdamG]

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Gunmen attacked a Vietnamese cargo ship off the Philippines' southern tip, killing a Vietnamese crewman and abducting six others including the vessel's captain, the Philippine coast guard and the ship's owner said Monday.
Coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo said the Vietnamese coast guard reported that the MV Giang Hai, with 17 crewmen on board, was attacked by pirates Sunday night about 20 miles (31 kilometers) north of Pearl Bank in Tawi-Tawi, the Philippines' southernmost province.
Personnel of the Philippine coast guard, police and marines found the ship had drifted near the province's Baguan Island. Upon boarding the vessel, they found 10 Vietnamese sailors alive and one dead.

Pham Van Hien, head of the safety department of Pham Hai shipping company, the owner of the cargo ship based in Vietnam's northern port city of Hai Phong, said the captain was among those abducted. The attack occurred while the vessel was transporting 4,500 tons of cement from Indonesia to the Philippines, he said.
The gunmen destroyed some of the ship's equipment, but the 10 remaining crew members managed to sail the ship, Hien said.
He said the company had informed the IMB Piracy Reporting Center in Malaysia to seek its help in securing the return of the kidnapped crew members.
Balilo said pursuit operations are underway, but the location of the abducted crewmen and the identity of the attackers remain unknown.
Abu Sayyaf militants and allied gunmen are suspected of being behind previous sea assaults in the area, including an attack last November on another Vietnamese cargo ship whose captain and five crewmen were also kidnapped. They are believed to be held by the militants in the southern province of Sulu, where the kidnappers are holding at least 20 foreign and local hostages in different jungle locations.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/26b86...ead-6-abducted

[davidbfpo]

Piracy is a perennial problem in the waters around the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia known as the Sulu-Celebes Sea; with irregular Western media reports on kidnappings. This BBC report is an update, with a focus on multilateral action or inaction.


Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39252503

[AdamG]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte cut short a visit to Russia and imposed martial law on the island of Mindanao on Tuesday after a fierce bout of fighting erupted during a raid by security forces at a hideout of Islamic State-linked militants.
Two soldiers and a policeman were killed and 12 wounded amid chaos in Marawi, a predominantly Muslim city of about 200,000 people, where members of the Maute militant group took control of buildings and set fire to a school, a church and a detention facility.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-phi...-idUKKBN18J2AE

[AdamG]

Piracy is a perennial problem in the waters around the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia known as the Sulu-Celebes Sea; with irregular Western media reports on kidnappings. This BBC report is an update, with a focus on multilateral action or inaction.


Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39252503

Islamic State in the Philippines
http://www.agathocledesyracuse.com/w...amic-State.jpg

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to WoTR for this US SF veteran's commentary on the situation, alongside some history.
Link:https://warontherocks.com/2017/10/fo...ot-the-answer/

[AdamG]

Liberated Philippines city lies in ruins, and its people seethe
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...cid=spartandhp

Beyond earshot of officials and soldiers, people wonder why the army was so quick to pummel their predominantly Muslim city. They are also suspicious of the role played by U.S. Special Forces.
With Islamic State fighters losing ground in Iraq and Syria, men and money may shift to Southeast Asia, experts have said. They will find in the southern Philippines an angry and vulnerable population, institutions racked by war, and a government, led by President Rodrigo Duterte, that sees shooting as a way to solve social problems.
In other words: prime recruiting grounds.
In that sense, what happened in Marawi is not the success that Duterte claims but a lesson in the limits of fighting extremism with force alone.

[SWJ Blog]

Philippines Struggles to Suppress ISIS-Linked Rebels as Foreign Fighters Found

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Philippines Struggles to Suppress ISIS-Linked Rebels as Foreign Fighters Found

A SWJ Blog link to a WSJ report on the fighting with an ISIS affiliate in Marawi; which has several comments on veteran observers and our own local observer Dayuhan - worth a read.

[SWJ Blog]

Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force In Philippines Ended Too Soon, Mattis Says

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Interview With COL David Maxwell on US Special Operations Troops Advising Philippines Forces on Insurgents

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[davidbfpo]

An Australian commentary, which reminds us that:

Some 12 weeks later, the fighting continues and the toll in death and destruction climbs inexorably, much to the dismay and embarrassment of the Philippine military.

Link:https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ba...outheast-asia/

[AdamG]

An Australian commentary..

I don't see where the author has any experience outside of Academia.

In any event, SWJ needs to look at Marawi as a MOUT case study.


Why it took 5 months to end Marawi siege
By: Allan Nawal - Correspondent / @inqmindanao
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:02 AM October 22, 2017

MARAWI CITY — Soldiers lacked training and equipment for urban warfare which stretched the military campaign to rid the city of Islamic State (IS) followers to five months, according to a key ground commander here.
Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., deputy commander of the military’s Joint Task Group Ranao, said officers had to improvise in terms of deploying troopers, equipment and using tactics to defeat members of homegrown terror groups Abu Sayyaf and Maute, who had tried to establish an IS base in this predominantly Muslim city.
The government had declared the liberation of the city from IS, although fighting continued to finish off what the military now refers to as “stragglers,” or remnants of Abu Sayyaf and Maute, still holed up in the city

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/939746/...#ixzz4wEfCzzch

Philippine troops on Sunday were battling a final group of about 30 pro-Islamic State group militants who were surrounded in one building with all their hostages gone as a nearly five-month siege neared its end in southern Marawi city, a military official said.
Army Col. Romeo Brawner said troops were aiming to end the crisis before midnight Sunday. He said the remaining gunmen, who include some Indonesian and Malaysian fighters, have the option of surrendering, or they can either be captured or killed.
"Our government forces will try to do everything to finish the firefight today," Brawner said in a news conference in Marawi. He said the battle area centered in a two-story building near Lake Lanao where the firefight continued to rage at noon.
"It's either they all get killed, because they're determined to die inside, or we capture them or they surrender," he said.
A gradual withdrawal of military forces was underway with the easing of the fighting, which has left at least 1,131 people dead, including 919 militants and 165 soldiers and policemen. Troops continued to ask the gunmen, who are leaderless and running low on ammunition, to surrender by using loudspeakers, Brawner said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...unmen-50641224

[AdamG]

Twenty-seven sailors aboard the Philippines ship MV Kudos stopped 12 pirates trying to board the ship in the Basilan sea, by splashing the armed men with the concoction of hot water and oil.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-1...niques/9459238

[AdamG]

MANILA (Reuters) - A U.N. special rapporteur, a former Philippine lawmaker and four former Catholic priests are among more than 600 alleged communist guerrillas the Philippines wants declared “terrorists”, according to a government petition filed in court.
The justice ministry last month said it wanted a Manila court to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), “terrorist” bodies, but made no mention of individuals it would also target.
The petition, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, suggests President Rodrigo Duterte is following through on his threats to destroy a movement he now regards as duplicitous.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-p...-idUSKCN1GK0DO