SAS in hunt for Asia's terrorists

The Australian ^ | 14th October 2006 | Greg Sheridan

[naturalman1975]

AN elite Australian Special Air Service team of about 20 soldiers has been involved in a joint military operation in the southern Philippines to hunt down Asia's most wanted terrorists, including two of the 2002 Bali bombers.

The SAS has been participating in a US-Philippines military campaign to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf terror outfit, which is believed to have been sheltering senior Indonesian Jemaah Islamiah terrorists Dulmatin and Umar Patek.

The campaign, centred on the Abu Sayyaf stronghold of Jolo island in Mindanao, has been running for more than two months.

Sources told The Weekend Australian it involved about 100 US special forces, including Green Berets, Navy SEALs and CIA counter-terrorism specialists, as well as the armed forces of The Philippines.

The SAS was involved in joint operations with Philippines forces using high-speed inflatable boats to stop terrorists trying to get in and out of the southern Philippines.

A number of terrorists have been captured by boats operating among islands between The Philippines and the east coast of Malaysia.

The SAS action in The Philippines is the closest the SAS has come to conventional combat operations in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

The Philippines constitution forbids foreign forces from engaging directly in combat operations on Philippines soil. This restricts US and Australian forces to training and logistics.

However, it is believed that these terms are sufficiently elastic to allow intimate US and Australian involvement in Philippines military operations, with the only proviso that the final military action must be taken by Philippines soldiers. They can, however, be accompanied by Americans or Australians.

[Enterprise]

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[Parley Baer]

Looks like this one they are letting us know about. I'm sure there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes.