Usman recruits seen behind Kidapawan bombing

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao, Philippines – Last Monday’s bombing in Kidapawan City was only meant to scare people as part of a test mission of new recruits of foreign-trained bomber Basit Usman, officials said yesterday.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has repeatedly denied that Usman, who carries a bounty of P10 million, is a member of the front.

Superintendent Cornelio Salinas, North Cotabato police director, said investigators were still trying to determine the identities of the bombers for the filing of criminal cases against them.

At Malacañang, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the police and military have updated President Aquino about the bombing and “the directive is for them to investigate and to report to him who the possible culprits are.”

Army and police intelligence sources cited reports, among them from members of the Muslim religious community in Central Mindanao, that the bombers were followers of Usman.

Usman, said to have trained in making improvised explosives in Kandahar, Afghanistan and subsequently in Peshawar, Pakistan in the early 1990s, was tagged as the mastermind of bombings of more than a dozen commercial establishments and public transport terminals in Central Mindanao from 2004 to 2009.

The military had tightened its surveillance of Usman two weeks before Monday’s bombing in Kidawapan City.

Intelligence sources said Usman last trained a dozen women in handling and fabricating improvised explosives somewhere in Mamasapano, Maguindanao last May.

Usman subsequently recruited prospective trainees in a coastal area at the border of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat and Maitum, Sarangani early this month, the sources said.

Col. Modesto Asto, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said their division commander, Brig. Gen. Rey Ardo, yesterday ordered all intelligence units under his jurisdiction to work closely with local officials and Muslim religious leaders to locate Usman. – With Delon Porcalla