An aerial view of the dangerous Jolo island in the southern Philippines where thousands of U.S. and Filipino troops begin 18 Feb. 2007 a three-week joint military drills, dubbed as Balikatan 2007, aimed at enhancing combat capabilities of troops. Filipino troops are battling Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya militants on the island, about 950 km south of Manila. And this would be followed with similar anti-terror trainings in Tawi-Tawi island near the Sabah border and continued in central Mindanao island.
The Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya groups are blamed for the string of bombings in the Philippines and Indonesia that had already killed scores of people the past years.
U.S. and Philippine troops would also embark on humanitarian missions, that included infrastructure projects and medical outreach in poor Muslim areas in during the exercises, U.S. Air Force Major John Redfield, spokesman of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, tells Mindanao Examiner. (Mindanao Examiner Photo)
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