Philippine Official Blames US for Pulling Strings for Security Operations

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Secret US embassy cables disclosed by WikiLeaks back in 2010 indicate that Washington was behind many of the Philippines' counter-terrorism operations, and possibly the botched police raid that killed 44 Philippine troops in January 2015, a Philippine congressman said Wednesday.

"From funding to intelligence gathering and actual operations, we can trace Washington's shadow movements in the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) through these cables," Rep. Terry Ridon said in a statement published on the website of his Kabataan Partylist party.

The congressman said that cables show how Washington was trying to "embed" its spies and "operate covertly" within the ranks of Philippine forces.

They also revealed that the US embassy in Manila sought millions of dollars in funds from the US government to buy military equipment for operations on Philippine soil, allegedly including drones and precision-guided munitions.

The Philippine government is mired in a decades-long standoff with insurgents from a Muslim minority group called Moro Islamic Liberation Front, as well as a local cell of a sprawling terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiyah, which seeks to establish a caliphate in South Asia.

An operation to wipe out a Malaysian bomber with links to Jemaah Islamiyah was botched last January when 44 Philippine police troops were killed in an ambush by the two rebel groups in the town of Mamasapano, in the southern Philippines.