Philippines, U S to hold joint troop exercises

MANILA, Jan 24 (Reuters) Thousands of Philippine and U S soldiers will hold joint exercises next month on the troubled southern island of Jolo, a bastion of one of Southeast Asia's deadliest Islamic militant groups, officials said today.

U S forces routinely train and advise Philippine military units, build roads, schools and other humanitarian projects, as part of efforts with Washington's closest ally in the region to defeat Muslim rebels and develop poor southern communities.

The large-scale annual exercises are usually held in army and navy bases on the Luzon mainland to test the two militaries' security preparedness against external aggression.

''The focus of this year's Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) military exercises would be in Sulu (province),'' said Matthew Lussenhop, spokesman of the U S embassy in Manila.

''We'll be doing more humanitarian and civil affairs activities in the area.'' There were no immediate details on the number of troops to be involved in the exercises, but the United States typically deploys about 5,000 soldiers each year.

This year's military exercises in Sulu, a string of islands thick with jungle between the Mindanao mainland in the southern Philippines and Sabah in eastern Malaysia, will begin on February 18 and run until March 4.

About 7,000 Philippine soldiers have been on Sulu's main island of Jolo since August 1 to hunt for members of Abu Sayyaf, the smallest but most violent group of Muslim rebels in the mainly Roman Catholic country.

Abu Sayyaf, suspected of close ties with al Qaeda and the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah, is blamed for the worst terror attack in the Philippines, killing more than 100 people in the bombing of a passenger ferry near Manila bay in February 2004.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said the strong security partnership between Manila and Washington was the key factor in her government's successes against the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group in the south.

''Our joint military training exercises with the United States constitute a spearhead against the spread of terror in the region,'' Arroyo said in a statement today.

Philippine security forces say close to 70 Abu Sayyaf rebels, including two top leaders -- Khaddafy Janjalani and Jainal Antel Sali, alias Abu Sulaiman -- had been killed in nearly 40 major clashes since August 1.

REUTERS PB BS1216