By Manny Mogato JOLO, Philippines, Jan 27 (Reuters) - U.S.-trained Philippine troops were out to destroy the Robin Hood-like myth around a one-armed Muslim militant leader on a remote southern island, an army field commander said. Radullan Sahiron, believed to have taken over the leadership of the deadliest militant group in the mainly Roman Catholic country, was now the focus of military operations on Jolo island, he said. "I don't think he's that charismatic," Colonel Mark Supnet, a brigade commander on Jolo, told Reuters in an interview at an army base on Friday, referring to Sahiron. Worshipped as a folk hero by Muslim rebels on Jolo and Basilan islands, Sahiron is the most senior and experienced surviving leader of the Abu Sayyaf after the killing of its chief and of its main planner in recent months. Sahiron lost his right arm at the height of the Muslim secessionist wars in the 1970 when he was a leader of the Moro National Liberation Front that signed a peace deal with the government in 1996. That forced him to join the Abu Sayyaf and he rose to become a senior adviser to the now dead chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani. "Some people say he's a local folk hero, like Robin Hood," said Supnet, while supervising supply runs by helicopter to troops patrolling Mount Tumatangis, the island's highest peak, where some Abu Sayyaf members are believed to be holed up. "But we're now getting information from the local residents about his movements and activities. Like Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman, we will soon get Radullan." Supnet said the morale of 7,000 troops tracking down the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf was boosted by the recent deaths of the rebel group's two top leaders, Janjalani and Jainal Antel Sali, alias Abu Sulaiman. CHANGING TACTICS He said the military has been chasing the Abu Sayyaf in "more synchronised and organised operations", partly the result of training and technical assistance provided by about 100 U.S. troops deployed on Jolo since 2005. "We've changed tactics," said an army intelligence official. "We've adapted our enemies' guerrilla warfare strategy. The Abu Sayyaf was avoiding any head-on confrontation, so we've sent out elite special units to give them a dose of their own fighting techniques." The intelligence officer said the soldiers have a significant edge over the rebels because they were provided near real-time intelligence and could be brought to battlefields much faster by helicopters with night-flying capabilities. Similarly, the wounded could be quickly evacuated. "Our level of fighting has improved and our confidence has grown because we're now getting a lot of logistics and combat support," said an army corporal who only gave his last name as Santos. "Before, troops were dying due to loss of blood because it was difficult to get them out from the combat zone. Now, you could be airlifted any time of the day and treated at a field hospital inside the brigade camp." EAGER TO FIGHT Philippine military officials said the training and technical assistance provided by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines since 2002 was paying off. "They're definitely not involved in any ground operations," Supnet said, but credited the U.S. military for training local troops on small-unit combat operations that helped kill Janjalani in September and Abu Sulaiman on Jan. 16. But, if given a chance to join in actual combat, most of the U.S. soldiers on Jolo were eager and willing. "That's what we're trained for," Staff Sergeant Mark Gallant of Salt Lake City, Utah, told Reuters. "But, we're not allowed to do that. We even get escorts when we go out from our barracks and visit the town." An army reservist who has been in Kandahar and Kabul in 2002, Gallant said they were playing a vastly different role in the Philippines, America's second front in Asia in the war against terrorism. "We have freer movement in Afghanistan," Gallant said. "We can kick doors, search caves. In Jolo, we only give advice and assistance."
