By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
The Mamasapano, Maguindano operation by the Special Action Force (SAF) was an almost botched raid. Its saving grace, thanks to the U.S Global Positioning Satellite (GPS), CIA's mole in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, drone, and night vision goggles, was the finding, killing, and photo taking of Malaysian bomb maker, Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan, and cutting off one of his right fingers for DNA processing by the Americans.
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Marwan, considered as consummate master bomber, has a $5 million (P235 million) bounty from the U.S State Department.
Likewise, the strategy employed in the Mamasapano (geez, I used to jog in the 1980s at the nearby Awang, Dinaig Airport with my military father) slaughters of the 44 British Army SAS (Special Air Service) inspired Filipinos elite SAF members could not be likened to the SEAL’s feat in Abbottabad, Pakistan where No. 1 Islamist terrorist Osama Bin Ladin perished in the double tapped bullets of the SEAL’s Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifle.
The U.S commando there were borne by two stealth UH-60 Black Hawks and two CH-47 Chinooks from Jalalabad, Afghanistan to Pakistan while the 300 SAF traveled surreptitiously by foot through their sturdy boots to the target area.
The only stealth operation in the Philippines that until now remains unexposed was when the 1996 multi-billion pesos funds for the AFP Modernization Act under Republic Act 7898 were pocketed by government officials during that time.
The monies used to purchase a squadron of F-16 Falcon's multi-role fighter jets, modern helicopters probably like the non-stealth UH-60 Black Hawks, frigates, tanks, others were lost after a huge chunk of the lands in Fort Bonifacio was sold by the government to the present owners of the burgeoning and bustling Global City in Taguig City. If you disagree what those scoundrels on the Bonifacio’s deal had done was stealth, then we can settle that it was a “steal” , son of a gun, in chutzpah.
SAF compared to SEAL’s Operation in Kunar Province, Afghanistan
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| Philippines commando's Special Action Force whose training was inspired by the British's Special Action Services. Photo Credit: hindustantimes.com |
A good comparison to a similar Mamasapano raid and the SEAL operation would be the SEAL Team 6 (yes, Virginia the same group that swooped at the lair of Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan) in the late 2000s in the inhospitable mountain of Kunar Province in Afghanistan.
In the book “No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy SEAL” as told by Mark Owen, who was part of SEAL Team Six that killed Osama Bin Laden, he said when his squad was transported from their base in the U.S mainland by a Boeing C-17 Globe Master III to a military base in Germany, flown again by another transport jet to a U.S Bagram Air Base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and transported again by the CH-47 Chinook they called "school bus" to a fire base in Kunar Province, they spent a day with the Army Rangers there by asking them the nuances of the inhospitable high mountain areas where the Taliban and Al Quida fighters were ensconced in buildings made of mud. Owen said the Islamist fighters there who live 7 kilometers away in rough and tall elevated mountains, have been ambushing and attacking the rangers.
Garbed in shabby camouflage that don’t even pair with each others SEAL's dress and pants, where some of them don’t wear bullet proof plates, brandishing their German made Heckler & Koch MP7 with suppressors (or silencers, to the jeepney and construction workers who read this article), highly modified M79 40 mm grenade launchers they called “pirate gun”, Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifles with a ten-inch barrel and suppressors, M4A1 5.56 mm rifle (that looks like our "obsolete" Baby Armalite in the Philippines), others, the squad of long haired and unshaven SEAL Team - 6 avoid the road by melting away from the Ranger who did a regular patrol on the road at the wee hours of darkness, climbed by using their hands and feet the mountains slope, ridges, and cliff to locate the goat trails the drone took picture, walked the 7 kilometers, where the rangers told them they only reached half of it as they were ambushed by the enemies, paced through the help of their night vision goggle the rough trail and reach the target area. By carefully peering at the hole, they shot to death the enemies with their automatic weapons suppressed by silencers. SEAL Snipers picked up, too, the rescuing guards nearby; while the four turbo prop powered AC-130 with its night vision goggled pilots emerged like a specter from somewhere and mowed with their GE M134 Mini-guns and 20mm canons the reinforcements of the Taliban from the nearby areas.
SAF Lacks the Strategy and the Air Support given to the SEAL
