WAR ON TERROR: Victory is with the children

Posted by Jim Stroud

June 5, 2006

When the commander of U.S. Special Forces in the Philippines talks about battles won in the war on terror, he does not list enemies killed and targets destroyed.

Instead, U.S. Army Col. James Linder recounts jobs created and schools built.

“We just changed the dynamics of a very small community from one in which only a few years ago, Abu Sayyaf was coming down from the hilltop with weapons on their back and recruiting the schoolchildren, to one in which they can’t come there anymore,” Linder said.

Since 2002, U.S. Army Rangers and Navy SEALs have been training and equipping Philippine troops to oust al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists from Mindanao, a predominantly Muslim and largely poor part of the Southeast Asian nation. The militaries have used a combination of combat offensives and development projects - with a heavy emphasis on the latter - to isolate the terrorists and win over local populations.

Their successes in villages like the one Linder described contrast sharply with the U.S.-led effort in Iraq or Afghanistan, where terror attacks only seem to increase. Now, senior U.S. military leaders say their work in the Philippines may offer lessons for how the U.S. operates in the Middle East.

READ: U.S. forces find model for beating terror