Troops, cops foil Cotabato bomb plot

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Bomb experts deactivated Sunday night a grenade found along a busy thoroughfare in the city, not far from the scene of an explosion a day before that injured two soldiers and a bystander.

The fragmentation grenade was first found by passersby near the entrance of a roadside online Bingo outlet, enabling Army and police bomb disposal teams to promptly take it out using a calibrated explosive disruptor.

“There was a need to use a bomb disruptor to set if off because it was already bereft of safety pin and lever,” said the city’s police director, Senior Superintendent Raul Supiter.

Supiter said probers had initially theorized the fragmentation grenade was hurled from a distance, but failed to explode.

He said they are yet to determine if the bungled attempt to set the grenade off was related to the bombing Saturday night, just two blocks away along the same thoroughfare, that left two soldiers and a bystander wounded.

The grenade exploded between two vehicles, a light truck and an Army 4x4 vehicle full of soldiers.