Moro rebels eyed in twin Zambo City bomb attacks

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Rogue Moro rebels were tagged as the ones possibly behind two bombing attacks here Thursday night that left at least seven civilians wounded, a security official said yesterday.

The security official, who declined to be named, said the group of Iyong Ayub, alias Commander Butik, and Kimsar Alibi, alias Munib Awkasa, operating in Tungawan, Zamboanga Sibugay could be behind the bombings.

Both Moro rebel leaders have pending charges of multiple murder and robbery in band.

“They have been monitored plotting to stage the attacks and sending their henchmen to deliver the bombs,” the official said, adding that the attacks were meant to extort money.

One of the bombs went off onboard a Rural Transit bus, wounding seven passengers. It was planted by four men who boarded the bus in Barangay Culianan east of this city, and alighted in Barangay Guiwan.

More than an hour later, another bomb went off outside the fence of a mosque in Barangay Suterville. No one was reported hurt but Muslim residents attending a “kutbah (sermon)” panicked.

Chief Superintendent Napoleon Estilles, Region 9 police director, said probers were looking at extortion as a motive in the attacks.

He said they were not also ruling out terrorism, as the attacks could make it appear that the city’s peace and order situation was unstable.

Estilles said the attacks could also be a spillover of ongoing military operations against the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan and “lost command” rebel groups in Tungawan town, which borders this city on the east.

Based on the post-blast investigation, he said the twin explosions could be related since the bombs used were almost the same and remotely triggered by cell phones.

Maj. Gen. Ricardo Reiner Cruz, commanding officer of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, said security would be tightened.

He, however, urged the Rural Transit bus company not to pick up passengers outside of its terminals to prevent anyone from slipping explosives onboard its buses.