President Rodrigo Duterte ratcheted up his feud with the United States on Monday, ordering all American special forces out of the southern Philippines where they have been advising local troops battling Muslim extremists.
The Filipino leader, the first to hail from the south and who claims Muslim ancestry, has been stepping up efforts to bring peace to the southern Philippines, where decades-long insurgencies with Muslim and communist rebels have claimed more than 150,000 lives.
US advisors in the area help train Filipino troops but are barred from engaging in combat except in self-defence.
The [Muslim] people will become more agitated. If they see an American, they will really kill him
Previously, about 500-600 US personnel rotated through the Mindanao region but in 2014, then-defence secretary Voltaire Gazmin said this would be cut back to 200.