US shows firepower in combat drills in Philippines

U.S. and Filipino forces on Thursday are holding their largest joint military exercises in decades called Balikatan, Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder.The drills involve about 17,600 military personnel and will feature live-fire maneuvers, including a ship-sinking rocket attack and beach assaults to retake an island this month.

In a gunnery range at Fort Magsaysay, a northern Philippine training camp for local special forces, American and Filipino troops successively fired Javelin guided missiles toward three target cars beside flames to simulate a battle zone at the bottom of a hill.