Philippine insurgents say a deployment of American combat troops against the Abu Sayyaf could unleash a wider conflict. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has at least 9,000 armed fighters in the field. The communist New People’s Army has 10,000 or more. The Abu Sayyaf gang numbers about 225. All three rebel groups are waging war in the southern Philippines against the central government. All three are accused of acts of terrorism. But only one has become the target of the U.S. armed forces: the diminutive Abu Sayyaf. But if the Bush administration has picked a fight it thinks is winnable, rebel leaders have a warning: Sending American troops into battle in the southern Philippines could unite the region’s insurgent forces against the United States and trigger a wider conflict. “The American people are not our enemies, but we will take it as an invasion if they come to fight,” said Shariff-Moshin Julabbi, a leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF. “There is no alternative but to fight.” Full Story
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