Clan war seen in road blast in Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – Police are certain that yesterday’s roadside bombing in a secluded barangay in Ampatuan, Maguindanao that injured a barangay official and two others was not the handiwork of terrorists, but stemmed from rido (clan war).

Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac, Maguindanao police director, said one of those injured was Esmael Kla, chairman of Barangay Kakal in Ampatuan town.

Kla, who earlier survived an ambush in Datu Unsay, Maguindanao, and his injured companions were on their way to the town proper of Ampatuan when the bomb, planted along a farm-to-market road, went off just as their vehicle was passing by.

Responding barangay officials and policemen rushed Kla and his companions to the Maguindanao provincial hospital in nearby Shariff Aguak town.

Pintac said investigators are convinced that Kla’s enemies were behind the roadside bombing.           

Local officials confirmed that Kla and most of his relatives are known supporters of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

The incident came just hours after police and Army bomb experts safely deactivated an improvised explosive which passersby found along the national highway at the border of Lambayong town in Sultan Kudarat and Tacurong City.

The explosive, according to Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu of the Directorate for Intelligence and Police Operations in Western Mindanao, was fashioned from a live 81-mm mortar projectile rigged with a battery-operated blasting mechanism.