Manila wants to "finish off" Abu Sayyaf this year

MANILA, Feb 15 (Reuters) The Philippines wants to ''finish off'' the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group in the south of the country this year, the country's military chief said today as he ordered more troops to the region.

General Hermogenes Esperon has previously told Reuters that the military had largely neutralised the Abu Sayyaf, the smallest yet most violent Muslim rebel group, killing the group's two top leaders and 65 fighters since launching an operation on the southwestern island of Jolo in August 2006.

Jolo is the bastion of the group.

''We want to finish the operations against the Abu Sayyaf on Jolo as soon as possible, within the year,'' said Esperon. ''We have deployed another Marine battalion and Scout Ranger teams to add the punch that we have there.'' The additional deployments would bring the number of soldiers deployed on Jolo to more than 8,000, including crew of about half a dozen helicopter gunships and several patrol boats blockading the tiny island between Mindanao and Malaysia's Sabah state.

Esperon said they would only start to reduce the forces on Jolo when ''threats had subsided or had been satisfactorily reduced to manageable level''.

He said the additional troops had already started arriving on Jolo and would participate in planned joint military exercises with US forces next week.

About 400 US soldiers were expected to take part in two weeks of humanitarian activities in poor Muslim communities on Jolo. Some members of the US Navy engineering teams started arriving this week on the island.

About 100 US special forces soldiers are on Jolo providing intelligence and training to the Philippine soldiers.

REUTERS SP RN1551