Bomb experts foil bomb attack on Maguindanao gov't compound

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Military bomb disposal operatives promptly defused Thursday a powerful improvised explosive device found at the entrance of the local government compound in Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao, preventing yet another bloody incident in the area, scene of many IED attacks in recent months.

Col. Prudencio Asto, public affairs chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the IED could have been aimed at killing local officials and employees working at the town hall of Shariff Aguak inside the compound, along a stretch of the Cotabato-Gen. Santos Highway.

Asto said intelligence operatives of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion are now helping the local police determine the identities of the people who planted the IED and the motive for the supposed bombing.

“We are unsure if whether it was aimed to kill someone getting inside the town hall regularly, or if it was intended for soldiers frequenting that compound,” Asto said.

There have been more than a dozen IED and mortar attacks in the surroundings of Shariff Aguak the past two years.