The United States and the Philippines will hold joint military exercises in the Philippines in a counterterrorism training program aimed at destroying the local cells of a Southeast Asian network with links to Al Qaeda, Filipino officials said Monday. The American troops will not be involved in combat, the officials said, but the training they will provide Filipino soldiers will help weed out about 40 operatives of Jemaah Islamiyah now in the southern Philippines. The United States is “very particular about how the Philippine government is addressing terrorism,” particularly Jemaah Islamiyah, said Eduardo Ermita, the Philippine defense secretary, during a news briefing on Monday. On Sunday, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, chief of the United States Pacific Command, visited a military camp in the southern Philippines, where he said Jemaah Islamiyah remained a problem. Filipino authorities had arrested several foreigners over the past year suspected of being Jemaah Islamiyah operatives.Full Story
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