Security forces foil Abu Sayyaf bombing plot

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - Government security forces foiled an attempt of the Abu Sayyaf group to stage a bombing attack in downtown Isabela City, Basilan after the bombers deploying the improvised bomb was alerted military intelligence, police said.

Police said the improvised explosive device (IED) fashioned through a cooking pot was subsequently recovered after it was abandoned outside a bazar about 3:25 a.m. along Roxas Avenue, Barangay Isabela Proper.

Police Superintendent Jerome Afuyog Jr., city police chief of Isabela City, said intelligence operatives of the 15th Special Forces Company, who were deployed and roving in the downtown, spotted a motorcycle without plate number with two riders carrying a suspicious item near the vicinity of Sta. Isabel Cathedral.

The suspects who sensed that they were being tailed by the intelligence operatives dropped their suspicious baggage upon reaching the Mabuhay Trading and sped off toward Barangay Kaumpurnah.

The intelligence operatives immediately alerted its K-9 team and police and military explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams that conducted safety procedures and detonated the suspicious item with water disruptor.

The police and Scene of the Crime Operatives discovered that the suspicious item contained IED.

The police said among the components recovered were: a piece cooking pot as container, a unit cellphone as firing switch, one piece rocker switch, pieces of light emitting diode colored red and green, a piece of silicon control rectifier, three pieces resistors 1000 ohm, a 2200ohm resistor, ammonium nitrate fuel oil weighing more or less 3 kilograms, two pieces improvised electric blasting cap, and three-feet long detonating cord.

The EOD team technical analysis confirmed that the recovered item was an IED and has the capacity to destroy lives and properties.