EDITORIAL - Another bombing

A bomb went off yesterday, not at any US government installation in the country, but in Cotabato City. The bomb, placed in a Multicab, ripped through a busy avenue as people were returning home from school and work, killing at least six people. Among those wounded were schoolchildren.

As of late last night, no group had claimed responsibility for the attack. It takes expertise, however, to fashion a powerful car bomb, and commitment to extremist violence to set it off with the intent to inflict maximum harm. In Mindanao, only groups trained by the bomb-makers of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terror cell loosely linked to al-Qaeda, have this special capability and ruthlessness.

Yesterday’s attack was the second bombing in Mindanao in less than two weeks. Late last month, eight people were killed in a powerful explosion at a popular entertainment center in Cagayan de Oro City, on a Friday night when many people were out for fun.

The attack in Cotabato could have been aimed at City Mayor Japal Guiani Jr., whose convoy was passing by when the car bomb was set off. Guiani was not in the convoy but his sister, the city administrator, was in the mayor’s bulletproof SUV and survived.

Investigators are also reportedly seeing the handiwork of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Force, which broke away from the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in protest against ongoing peace negotiations with the government. The deadly bombings could be meant to sabotage the peace talks, but this is just one of several angles being explored by investigators.

Solving the attacks will help secure the peace process, which is entering the contentious phases on power sharing and “normalization” or disarmament. Authorities should move quickly to find the perpetrators, not only to ferret out the truth but also to prevent further attacks. With the bombers going after soft targets, it is not farfetched to believe that more attacks are in the offing.