US deploys spy planes over Basilan

More unmanned US spy planes have arrived in Mindanao to enable the Philippine military to intensify its surveillance efforts and pinpoint the lairs of Abu Sayyaf terrorists holding an American couple and a Filipina nurse hostage for over nine months now.

Maj. Cynthia Teramae, spokeswoman for the US Special Operations command Task Force 510, said the P3-Orion planes, also called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), arrived over the weekend at Edwin Andrews Air Base in Zamboanga City at the request of the Philippine government.

Teramae did not say how many UAVs have arrived, but said these would provide routine aerial surveillance of southern Mindanao jungles where the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers were believed hiding with their captives, specifically in Basilan.

The joint military exercise called "Balikatan 02-1," under which US Special Forces are training Filipino soldiers in counter-terrorism warfare, is using the Abu Sayyaf as live targets.

"The purpose of (the spy plane is) it’s another tool that we are using to support the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in their counter-terrorism in Mindanao," Teramae said.

Both the United States and AFP refused to categorically say if the UAVs would be deployed to track down the Abu Sayyaf terrorists and search for the three remaining hostages — missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and nurse Deborah Yap who have been held in captivity since May last year.

At present, the US flies the P3-Orion over Basilan.

"The UAVs are here as additional tool that can be used as support for the training mission here, to provide better capability. All along, we have been using the night vision and better intelligence reporting and so this is an additional tool that we have to provide that extra edge for the AFP in support of their mission," Teramae said.

She added that the surveillance planes were contracted by the defense department and operated by Sanders Aviation Research Group.

Army Lt. Col. Danilo Servando, spokesman for the AFP’s Southern Command, said they were intensifying their technical intelligence activities, saying the AFP has been greatly dependent on human intelligence.

"As we all know, the AFP intelligence effort, to a large extent, has been limit to human intelligence gathering because we are hampered by the lack of technical capability in the area of surveillance," Servando said.