Manila Embassy Warns Americans of Possible Attacks

MANILA â€”  The U.S. Embassy officially warned Americans in the Philippines on Friday that they may be the targets of terrorist assassinations, and it urged that “all appropriate security precautions be exercisedâ€� after Wednesday’s killings of three Americans.

Citing “unconfirmed� reports that those responsible for this week’s separate but apparently coordinated slayings of two airmen, a retired serviceman and a Filipino civilian bystander near Clark Air Base plan to kill more Americans, an embassy official stated in an advisory:

“There possibly could be attacks against Americans in Manila and elsewhere in the Philippines. No time frame has been indicated.�

The statement, aired on American armed forces television, quickly added, “It is not certain that any attacks will take place.�

An embassy official who asked not to be named said the advisory was based primarily on an anonymous telephone call to a Western news agency in Manila on Thursday. In that call, a male voice claimed responsibility for the killings in the name of a Communist guerrilla assassination squad called the Alex Boncayo Brigade. The killings took place within a mile of Clark Air Base, 50 miles north of Manila.

The caller said that the three Americans, two of them active duty Air Force personnel who were in uniform at the time, were among a total of 10 Americans targeted for death. The killings, he said, are meant as “retaliation� for last week’s delivery of 10 new American armored personnel carriers to the Philippine armed forces, which have been battling the Communist rebels for 18 years.

Never before have the Communist rebels claimed responsibility for attacks in anonymous telephone calls, and, in a statement Friday, the Alex Boncayo Brigade denied that it was behind the killings.

‘Unscrupulous Elements’

“In the course of the struggle toward victory, unscrupulous elements cannot be stopped from using our name to their own ends,� the rebel statement declared.

Local political and police officials in Angeles City, a town adjacent to Clark, said that, in addition to the insurgents, they suspect that ultra-rightist death squads or military renegades could have killed the three Americans.

But one Western diplomat who asked not to be identified by name said, “In the short run, it almost doesn’t matter who was behind the killings or who made that phone call. The facts remain, Americans have been killed, a threat has been made and that’s serious stuff.�

Although military authorities have said privately that they suspect the Communists were behind Wednesday’s shootings--the first terrorist attack on Americans stationed at Clark--the government has yet to fix the blame officially.

President Corazon Aquino, during a press conference with the Foreign Correspondents Assn. of the Philippines on Friday, said that she still has not received a report from investigators.

“I don’t think it has been validated yet,� the president said of the anonymous caller’s claim, “so I am still waiting for the report to come.

Asked whether she is advising Americans to “lie low� until the killers are found and whether U.S. military personnel in the Philippines should avoid leaving their homes and the sprawling air force base, Aquino said, “Well, I don’t think so.� But Aquino made no other statements on the killings, which have stunned the thousands of American civilians who do business in the Philippines or are based here.

U.S. officials at Clark and at America’s other large military installation in the Philippines, Subic Bay Naval Base, 70 miles west of Clark, continued to restrict off-base travel and maintain increased security at the bases’ gates Friday. They even restricted hours for Halloween trick-or-treating on the base to two hours today.

“Trick-or-treating off base is highly discouraged,� the spokesman declared. The three American victims this week were shot and killed on three different roads in Angeles City.

Memorial Service Held

At Clark, dozens of troops carrying M-16s and wearing flak vests attended a memorial service for slain Airman 1st Class Steven M. Faust, 22, a base security guard from Pasadena, Tex., who was shot and killed in his car near the off-base neighborhood where he lived.

A Mass is scheduled for this afternoon for Air Force Sgt. Randy A. Davis, 30, a base mechanic from Portland, Ore., who was killed moments later outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Angeles City.

The third American victim was retired Air Force Sgt. Herculano Manganti, 60.