ZAMBOANGA CITY, 2 May 2005 — A US spy drone allegedly on a clandestine mission to track down suspected hideouts of the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiyah has crashed on a jungle in the southern Philippines, the country’s largest Muslim separatist group reported yesterday.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said the unmanned drone crashed last week in the hinterlands of Palimbang in Sultan Kudarat province, where Filipino security forces were hunting down “terrorists.”
It was not unclear if the drone was shot down by enemy fire or had malfunctioned. The MILF claimed that members of a special military unit recovered the unmanned aerial vehicle. The MILF said the drone’s mission was so secret that they got wind of the reported crash only yesterday. Sultan Kudarat, in the main southern Philippine island of Mindanao, is also a known stronghold of the MILF, which is currently negotiating peace with the Philippine government.
The last time the US military used such drone was during the rescue of kidnapped Kansas missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, and Californian Guillermo Sobero in 2001 in Basilan island. The trio were among a group of Filipino holiday-makers kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf from the posh Dos Palmas resort in the southwestern province of Palawan.
A regional military spokesman, Col. Franklin del Prado, said they have no reports about the supposed crash. “We have no reports about it,” he told Arab News yesterday.
The US still maintains a small group of military advisers in the southern Philippines, who assist the Filipino armed forces on its fight against terrorism. Both countries ended last week a brief joint anti-terror training exercise participated by over a thousand Filipino and US troops in Basilan island.
Yesterday, 25 American soldiers also arrived on troubled Jolo island south of Basilan to conduct a study prior to a humanitarian mission, an official said.
US Lt. Col. Greg Wilson said their visit on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometers south of Manila, was to assess the needs of the people there. “We are doing the assessment together with the armed forces of the Philippines and we will look into the potential humanitarian services and civil-military operations,” Wilson said.
Jolo, a known lair of the Abu Sayyaf rebels, was the site of fierce clashes in February.
Southern military command chief Lt. Gen. Alberto Braganza said the presence of US troops in Jolo was covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement between Washington and Manila. He assured local officials that the US troops will not conduct military operations.
“There are there for the assessment of what humanitarian assistance they can provide to the people,” he said.
Wilson, however, stressed that they are only conducting needs assessment, and “whatever potential further activities will be implemented are still subject for planning." in the higher level.” (with input from agencies)
