PH, US troops fight ‘terrorists’ in war games

ARACELI ISLAND, Palawan—American and Filipino troops engaged imaginary enemies on this island on Thursday in an exercise designed to familiarize both militaries with working together in combat.

The exercise was the highlight of the 10-daylong Philippines-US Amphibious Landing Exercise 15, an annual bilateral military exercise between members of the Philippine Marines and the US 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force being held simultaneously in Palawan province and in Central Luzon.

The boat-raid field training exercise saw at least 119 Marines from the two countries swooping in on this island at daybreak on board fast rubber boats, following a simulated bombing run conducted by a pair of AV-8B Harrier jets from the US Marines aimed at an imaginary force of terrorists.

“In this scenario, this is a place [where] some indigenous forces were… being trained by a third party. We took the island and tried to remove the insurgents in the area,” said Lt. Robert Rice, ground commander of the assault force in the simulated raid.

The exercise, which lasted about an hour, was observed by a group of military officers from the Japan Self-Defense Forces and ranking officials of the Western Command led by Cmdr. Natalio Abinuman of the Philippine Naval Forces West, which is in charge of territorial defense in the West Philippine Sea.