Philippine Troops Launch War Against Another Rebel Group

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, August 06, 2002

Philippine Troops Launch War Against Another Rebel Group

After cracking down on the Abu Sayyaf bandit group in the southern Philippines, the military saidthe next target is the New People's Army (NPA) rebels.

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After cracking down on the Abu Sayyaf bandit group in the southern Philippines, the military saidthe next target is the New People's Army (NPA) rebels.

"It's just too alarming," Armed Forces chief General Roy Cimatutold reporters on Tuesday, referring to the increasing terrorist activities and influence over villages nation-wide by the NPA.

"The NPA has terrorized some barangays (villages) to make them serve as sanctuaries for them. We also need to refocus our energies versus secessionist movements," he told the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines at the Mandarin Hotel in Metro Manila.

Earlier, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered the Armed Forces to redeploy its troops from Zamboanga and Basilan, where the Abu Sayyaf operates, to areas where there is a resurgence of NPA activities.

Cimatu said the general headquarters has requested the Presidential Palace through the Department of National Defense an authorization and budget for the recruitment of an additional 7,000 regular troops and about 15,000 members of the Citizens' ArmedForces Geographical Units for next year.

The current Armed Forces strength is at 113,000. It is facing at least four major threat groups including the NPA whose strengthwas pegged at 11,094 men.

Aside from the NPA, the Armed Forces also have to contend with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) with more than12,000 men, the Abu Sayyaf Group with some 200 remnants, and the armed followers of jailed rebel leader Nur Misuari with 4,700 men.

Cimatu also announced on Tuesday that government troops have arrested a senior NPA leader in sweeps of rebel hideouts in the southern Philippines.

"This is a very good development, just only to emphasize the directive of the president to intensity our operations against theNew People's Army," he said.

On the same day, Jose Maria Sison, political leader of the NPA,said in a statement from his exile in the Netherlands that the Arroyo administration is ending all prospects of reopening peace talks with the NPA.

Sison said that the NPA would intensify its assaults, using "both basic and special operations," and called for new kinds of attacks, the Philippine Star online news reported.

"For instance, the NPA can destroy electrical towers and lines," to divert the attention of the military, show the strength of the guerrillas and cause "calculated" economic disruption, Sison was quoted as saying.

He also called on Muslim separatist insurgent groups, like the MILF and the MNLF, to simultaneously launch attacks on the government.

Peace talks between the government and the NPA, which has raised a rebellion since 1969, were called off last year after theNPA assassinated two members of congress.

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