Blast rocks Sulu; 2 wounded

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Two people were wounded when a bomb exploded in a police-run cooperative store just meters away from the police camp in Jolo, Sulu last night, the military said.

The explosion occurred outside the Peace Keeper’s Inn, a police cooperative restaurant at Camp Asturias in Barangay Asturias in Jolo, said Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) public information chief.

Bacarro said there were reports that two people were wounded but they were not immediately identified.

He said investigation showed that the improvised explosive device (IED) was placed in a plastic bag left in a tricycle that was parked in front of the restaurant, just a few meters away from Camp Asturias Station Hospital.

The restaurant is a few hundred meters away from the Sulu police provincial headquarters.

Earlier yesterday, an improvised bomb was discovered at a public market in Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur, a few days after three explosions rocked various areas in Mindanao.

Military officials said the time bomb was set to go off around the middle of the day, when the market would have been packed.

A garbage man spotted the bomb hidden in a bag near the market’s entrance. Experts later defused it.

Military officials believe the Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network planned to bomb the Pagadian public market.

Brig. Gen. Reymundo Ferrer, Army First Division commander, said the bomb was made of ammunition from a rocket-propelled grenade, 60-mm. mortar, and 40-mm. and M203 plastic pipe with TNT flakes, one kilo of mixed TNT flakes with ammonium nitrate, blasting caps, and an alarm clock in a backpack.

"We suspected the bombing attempt is part of the JI and Abu Sayyaf to hit key cities," he said. "But the residents’ and the authorities’ vigilance prevailed over the evil plot."

Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, Armed Forces information chief, said that immediately after the incident, troops from the Army’s 53rd Infantry Battalion were deployed to the area and checkpoints set up. "The discovery of IED was a result of the police and the military’s intensified security efforts in Mindanao," he said. "Its recovery by our troops has preempted danger because that IED in a public place spells danger to life and property."

Bacarro said it was too early to say if the bomb was similar to those used in Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat, Makilala in North Cotabato and in Cotabato City.

However, they are looking into possible connections of the bomb with known terrorist groups who pose a threat to the country’s security, he added.

Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Reymundo Ferrer, Army First Division commander, said yesterday they have received reports that five more bombs have been placed in various unidentified areas in Pagadian.

Police and troops are trying to pinpoint the locations of the five other bombs, he added.

Last Oct. 12, a bomb exploded outside a commercial building in Cotabato City.

It was made from mortar and detonated using a cell phone. No casualties were reported in the blast.

Last Tuesday, two were killed and five people were wounded when a bomb exploded in the public market in Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat.

Shortly afterwards, eight people were killed and 30 were wounded in a powerful explosion at the fiesta celebration of Makilala town in North Cotabato.

The military believes the bombing attempt was connected with the Abu Sayyaf and JI’s threat to bomb key targets in retaliation for the arrest of Istiada BT Oemar Sovie, alias Amenah Tohe and Marsuwi, wife of JI bomb expert Dulmatin.

Sovie was arrested last Oct. 3 along with her two sons Edar, 6, and Alih, 8.

She is under military custody in a camp in Zamboanga City.

Earlier, the Pagadian City police chief said a bomb went off harmlessly, while another bomb was defused.

However, the military said it had found only one bomb containing two mortar shells, and that no explosion occurred.

Last week, a series of bomb attacks on commercial areas in Mindanao killed 12 people and wounded scores of others.

Officials have blamed extremists linked to the Abu Sayyaf and the JI group for the previous bombings.

The Abu Sayyaf and JI have been linked to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden.

It is suspected that the previous bomb blasts were diversionary attempts or retaliation for a massive military offensive in Jolo, where troops are hunting down two JI bomb-makers, Dulmatin and Umar Patek and their protector Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani.

Dulmatin and Patek are wanted for the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists. — With James Mananghaya, AFP