Another US official said there were only a “handful” of special forces in the Mindanao acting in limited liaison roles.
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President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday that Americans would constantly be in danger in the southern Mindanao region, where Islamic extremists would constantly try to kill or kidnap them for ransom.
“For as long as we stay with America, we will never have peace in that land [Mindanao]”.
The military official said U.S. military personnel are still operating under the status of foreign liaison elements at the Westmincom.
Last week, Duterte made global headlines when a scheduled meeting with President Barack Obama in China was canceled after he used the term “son of a b–” when he said he would not accept criticism from Obama of human rights violations associated with the crackdown on drugs.
Obama went around shaking hands with all the leaders present at the final summit meeting in Vientiane, Laos, but avoided Duterte.
“Mr. Duterte is on morally firm ground by breaking up walls that cover dark corners in US-RP relations”, Abella said.
Obama responded by cancelling a meeting with Duterte.
Duterte’s comments come a week after he called US President Barack Obama a “son of a bitch” in Tagalog following a reporter’s question about his support for thousands of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers. “There are many (Americans) there”, the President said in a speech at the oath-taking ceremony of the latest batch of his appointees in Malacañang. The Philippines has traditionally leaned on the USA, its longtime treaty ally, and other Western allies for its security needs.
After years of a strengthening partnership between the US and the Philippines, signs of tension between the two countries have begun to rise during 2016. “More critically, we are going to remain committed to our alliance commitments in the Philippines”. Since then most of the U.S. troops pulled out in 2015, just a few military advisers stay over there now.
The bloody crime war that has claimed almost 3,000 lives in the Philippines in just two months was dubbed a “success” on Sunday by a spokesman for controversial President Rodrigo Duterte. The U.S. has not received an official request to remove troops, according to Bloomberg.
Mr Duterte won the presidential election by a landslide in May after promising that tens of thousands of people would be killed in an unprecedented law-and-order crackdown.
Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Duterte’s comments reflected the government’s “new direction toward coursing an independent foreign policy”.
While visiting Manila, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter disclosed for the first time in a news conference with then Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin that U.S. ships had carried out sea patrols with the Philippines in the South China Sea, a somewhat rare move. On Monday he noted the 1906 Bud Dajo massacre, where the US killed Muslims during a pacification campaign.
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“Let me tell you about human rights”, Duterte said while displaying a picture of Filipinos killed by American soldiers about a century ago.
