Philippines, US hit ‘invasion’ forces in war drill
LAOAG: US and Filipino troops fired missiles and artillery at an imaginary “invasion” force during war games on the Philippines’ northern coast on onday, days after their governments objected to China’s “dangerous” actions in regional waters.
Thousands of troops are conducting land, sea and air manoeuvres against a backdrop of increased confrontations between Chinese and Filipino vessels around shoals in the South China Sea claimed by Manila, as well as stepped-up Chinese air and naval activity around nearby self-ruled Taiwan.
US troops massed at a strip of sand dunes on Luzon island’s northwest coast - around 400 kilometres south of Taiwan - let loose more than 50 live 155mm howitzer rounds at floating targets about five kilometres off the coast, journalists saw.
Filipino troops followed up by firing rockets aimed at wearing down the attackers, before the two forces finished the job with machine guns, Javelin missiles and more artillery rounds.
Lieutenant General Michael Cederholm, commander of the US First Marine Expeditionary Force, said the exercise was “to prepare for the worst” by “securing key maritime terrain.”
“It’s designed to repel an invasion,” Cederholm told reporters at the exercise site.
“Our northwestern side is more exposed,” Major General Marvin Licudine, exercise director for the Filipinos, told reporters ahead of the live firing at the La Paz sand dunes near Laoag city.
“Because of the regional problems that we have... we have to already practise and orient ourselves in our own land in these parts,” he added.
Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
It deploys hundreds of coast guard, navy and other vessels to patrol and militarise the waters.
Asked about Monday’s drills, China’s foreign ministry warned that “any military exercise should not be targeted at or harm the interests of third parties”. “Countries in the region can all see clearly who is currently provoking military confrontation and escalating tensions in the region,” spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing. Just last week, Manila said the China Coast Guard damaged a Philippine Coast Guard ship and another government vessel in water cannon attacks around the disputed China-controlled Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on April 30.