Grenade lobbed at gas station;2 injured

COTABATO CITY — Suspected extortionists blasted a fragmentation grenade at a gasoline station in Parang, Maguindanao the other night, leaving two people seriously wounded and local merchants apprehensive of their safety.

Probers in Parang, a coastal town where the regional police command center of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is located, identified the blast victims as Rio Lynn Manula and Cedric Candado, both workers at the gasoline station.

Citing initial feedback, Senior Superintendent Omar Ali, information chief of the ARMM police, said two motorcycle-riding men lobbed the grenade at about 6:45 p.m., just as the gasoline station, located in front of a public elementary school, was about to close.

Police said a local extortion ring could be behind the blast.

Several Muslim families displaced by hostilities in nearby municipalities are still staying in evacuation centers in Parang.

In another development, government troopers seized a lair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the hinterland of T’boli, South Cotabato last Thursday, according to Col. Danilo Servando, spokesman of the military’s Southern Command.

Soldiers were on patrol when they stumbled upon the rebel camp. — John Unson, Roel Pareño