US and Philippine forces conduct live-fire coastal combat drills

United States stealth fighters streaked across the sky and rockets blasted imaginary enemies in the northern Philippines as two weeks of combat drills involving 2,500 Philippine and US Marines engaging in mock amphibious assaults and other coastal tactics neared an end.

The live-fire exercises in a remote valley north of the capital, Manila, on Thursday were the highlight of joint combat readiness manoeuvres codenamed Kamandag – a Tagalog acronym for “Cooperation of the Warriors of the Sea” – which ends on Friday, military officials said.

Held simultaneously with combat drills between US and Japanese forces on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, the Japanese exercises involved an additional 3,000 military personnel, US Marines Major General Jay Bargeron said.

Bargeron said the drills ensured that the US was “prepared to rapidly respond to crisis throughout the Indo-Pacific”.

The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force said the exercises, named Resolute Dragon 22, were “designed to strengthen response capabilities” and contribute to the “reinforcing of a free and open Indo-Pacific”.

Agencies