Meanwhile another US crony struggles with rebellion and armed insurrection: The Philippines

General: Philippine army lacks strength to defeat communists

A TOP Philippine general conceded Monday the military lacked the manpower and equipment needed to defeat the nation’s communist insurgents.

Philippine troops have been battling Muslim militants, draining the military of resources vital to put down the long-running and separate communist insurgency, Major General Jogy Leo Fojas said in a report published in the broadsheet The Philippine Star.

The newspaper quoted the general as saying he doubted whether the military could “wipe out communist insurgents” by 2010.

President Gloria Arroyo pledged last year to defeat the 36-year-old rebellion by the time she left office in 2010.

Fojas, head of military operations, said the army had failed to meet a half-year target in its campaign against the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

“As of the first semester 2007, we have only dismantled three NPA fronts,” the newspaper quoted Fojas saying.

“Our target for the whole of 2007 was 18 guerrilla fronts. Our field commanders are still doing their best to meet the target,” he said.

Fojas gave no reason for missing the targets in the report.

Under its counter-insurgency plan, the military aims to dismantle about 80 percent of the 100 NPA guerrilla fronts in 69 of 81 provinces.

While 18 guerrilla fronts were targeted for dismantling this year, the remaining 62 rebel bases are set to be destroyed between January 2008 and June 2010.

A senior intelligence official was quoted saying security forces had been sidetracked by elections in May, and by efforts to hunt down Islamic militants in the south.

Some 12,000 troops are tied down in several Muslim-majority southern islands where the al-Qaeda linked Abu Sayyaf and other militant groups have been waging deadly attacks.

“Our troops are thinly spread across the archipelago and we moved so many resources to address the more immediate threat posed by Islamic militants from the Abu Sayyaf,” the unnamed in­tel­ligence official was quoted saying.

“We’re too busy putting out fires here and there in the first half of the year that rebels just took advantage of the vacuum left by the movement of our forces.”

Despite the strain on the military, Fojas said latest intelligence estimates showed NPA strength had fallen to about 6,300 fighters at the end of June, down by 900 from the end-2006.

The paper said that since 1969, more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, one of the longest Maoist-led rebellions in Asia.

Original article posted here.