MANILA: US forces will resume training Philippine troops in October to help defeat an Islamic guerrilla group already grooming boys as young as 10 for a campaign of terror, a Philippine official said on Tuesday.


About 400 American soldiers would take part in the exercises in the southern Philippines in the second phase of a joint US-Philippine effort to eliminate the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, armed forces chief General Roy Cimatu told reporters.


More than 1,000 US troops, including special forces, took part in counter-terrorism exercises on the southern island of Basilan in the first phase, which lasted six months and ended last week.

The training of the young Abu Sayyaf recruits included indoctrination in madrasahs, or Islamic schools, he said.

The United States has linked the Abu Sayyaf to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, prime suspects in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

About eight Philippine battalions — estimated to number about 4,000 troops — would be trained by US special forces in the exercises from October 1, possibly lasting till next June, Cimatu said.

He said skills learned by Filipinos in the training should also help them fight the communist New People's Army (NPA), which has been waging a war for a Marxist state for more than three decades elsewhere in the country.

Funding for the new training will come from $55 million military assistance pledged by US Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit to Manila last week.

Cimatu said that since US forces began training local soldiers in February, the Philippine military had largely neutralised the Abu Sayyaf group, which operates mainly on the mountainous islands of Basilan and Jolo.

As a result, the Philippine military has pulled out some of its forces in the south and redeployed them to other areas where Marxist rebels are operating, Cimatu said.

But he said the military was leaving enough forces on Basilan "to sustain the eradication of the movement".