2 US Navy personnel, 1 Marine soldier killed in Sulu blast
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/173383/land-mine-kills-2-us-navy-personnel-1-marine-soldier-in-sulu
09/29/2009 | 02:39 PM
Two US Navy personnel and one Philippine Marine soldier were killed when a land mine exploded along a road in Indanan, Sulu Tuesday morning, an official said.
The American fatalities were members of the US Navy construction brigade, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr. told GMANews.TV in a telephone interview. He did not disclose the identities of all three casualties.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Thompson said American officials were "investigating the incident" but declined to comment further.
Brawner said the AFP has no leads yet on who were behind the attack. The Philippine military is fighting the well-armed Abu Sayyaf, which is blamed for numerous bombings and kidnappings of Filipinos and foreigners in the south in recent years.
It was believed to be the first death of an American soldier caused by the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group since U.S. troops were deployed to the southern Philippines to help combat militants in 2002.
“These U.S. servicemen, from the data that we gathered, were non-combatants. They were, in fact, members of the U.S. Seabees and they were there to supervise the developmental projects in the area when they were attacked," Brawner said.
"We would like to emphasize that they were not in combat and they were escorted and they were being secured by members of the Philippine Marines," he added.
Two other Filipino soldiers were hurt when the land mine, an improvised explosive device, tore through a military convoy as it was making its way to a road project in Brgy. Kagay, Indanan municipality in Sulu province, Brawner said.
Brawner said the soldiers were on board a U.S. Humvee and were supervising the construction of the five-kilometer Kagay to Langpas road when the blast occurred at about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
He said the American soldiers were part of the US Navy engineering unit assisting Philippine military personnel in various infrastructure projects in the area.
An estimated 600 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the Philippines, mostly in the southern front lines of the Philippine military's operations against the Abu Sayyaf, which is suspected of sheltering the larger Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.
Asked if there were any threats against the US soldiers, Brawner said, "We don't want to speculate on the perpetrators of this bombing."
But he added: "We know that the Abu Sayyaf is operating in the area." – Andreo Calonzo with a report from AP, GMANews.TV
