Bomb expert says Zambo blast fits Sayyaf-JI pattern

ZAMBOANGA CITY — There are indications that the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network had a hand in the twin bombings that rocked Zamboanga City last Wednesday, leaving 26 people wounded, a government bomb expert revealed.

According to Superintendent Jose Bayani Gucela, the deputy police chief and commander of the city police’s Explosive and Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, a pattern has emerged showing a "similarity to the previous bombings" three years ago.

During the October 2002 series of bombing attacks in the city’s Malagutay district, authorities traced the bombing to the Abu Sayyaf urban terrorist group (UTG), said to be behind the attack that left a dozen people killed, including a visiting US serviceman, and wounded more than 70 others.

The police and military explosives experts, along with their counterparts from the US, found that the Abu Sayyaf bombers used plastic explosives, more commonly known as C-4, in the bombing attacks.

The investigation also led authorities, in just a week, to arrest five of the suspects in the bombing. Their arrest also led the police to uncover a new terror unit, reportedly trained by the JI in Sulu.

Gucela, however, admitted they had yet confirm the reports and the kind of explosives used in last Wednesday’s twin attack.

"We have recovered the empty box of the timing device. But as of now we cannot confirm yet the kind of explosive that was used" in the twin blast, Gucela said.

"Nevertheless, we can establish there is a pattern of similarity of the previous bombing that we have experienced in Zamboanga City," according to Gucela, a US-trained bomb expert who led the investigation into the twin blasts.

Gucela declared last Wednesday’s bombing attacks "related to the ASG-JI pattern of placing bombings and explosions."

Police have already filed criminal charges against the suspects. One of the suspects has been positively identified by witnesses who saw him planting an explosive device in a parked multicab before it went off.

Police said they have strong evidence against the bombing suspects that would lead to their successful prosecution in court.

"(We have strong) evidence against them. We have already confirmed that these people are members of the Abu Sayyaf," Superintendent Prospero Noble said.

Senior Superintendent Henry Losañez, city police chief, added he is optimistic they could solve the second blast that hit the St. Ann’s Pension house and Chowking Building in the city.

Losañez claimed they have some suspects in custody but declined to name them. — With Pia Lee-Brago