COTABATO CITY, Philippines - – The police and military placed under tight watch busy spots in Central Mindanao after text messages circulated anew in Kidapawan City that foreign-trained bomber Basit Usman is out to carry out bombings in the area.
Usman, said to have undergone training in handling of explosives in Kandahar, Afganistan and in Peshawar, Pakistan, during the early 1990s, have been tagged as the brains in more than a dozen deadly bombings in Central Mindanao from 1999 to 2009.
An ethnic Maguindanaon, Usman was last reported as having met clandestinely certain Moro rebel groups hostile to Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose family wields political control over the towns of Mangudadatu, Pandag and Buluan all in the second district of the province.
The text messages that have been circulating in Kidapawan City for days now mentioned two followers of Usman, a certain Salman and Arjie Usman, as the couriers of the improvised explosive devices that would be used in the bombings.
Major Marlowe Patria, civil-military relations officer of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID), said the 6th ID has fielded dozens of intelligence agents to help the police guard public terminals and other public facilities, such as markets, against bomb attacks.
“Even if these are threats from anonymous text senders, the 6th ID leadership is not taking chances,” Patria told reporters.
He said there are also 6th ID intelligence units now helping track down the whereabouts of Usman.
Usman has reportedly been hiding somewhere for over a year now at the border of Maitum, Sarangani, and Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat.