Bomb blast kills 4 in southern Philippines
Print Edition
A BOMB hidden in a parked motorcycle taxi exploded as a vice mayor鈥檚 convoy passed in the southern Philippines, killing four people and wounding at least six others, the police and military said.
The blast happened about an hour after a bomb blew up on a crowded passenger bus some 300 kilometers to the west, injuring at least 18 people in the town of Polomolok, officials said yesterday.
No group claimed responsibility for either attack.
Colonel Rolando Joselito Bautista, military commander in Basilan Province, where the second blast occurred, said Abu Sayyaf militants were among the initial suspects because of their history of bombings in the area, where the al-Qaida-linked group first surfaced in the 1990s.
The second bomb struck the two-vehicle convoy of Isabela city Vice Mayor Abdulbaki Ajibon, killing her driver and another passenger, and two pedestrians, said Bautista. Ajibon was uninjured, although her SUV was badly damaged.
鈥淭he vice mayor was shocked but she鈥檚 safe. Two of her people died in this attack,鈥 said Isabela police chief Albert Larubis.
The bomb was packed with shrapnel and shattered the glass of nearby buildings, he said. It occurred in front of the house of Mayor Cherrylyn Santos-Akbar, who was not home. Three years ago, a roadside bomb exploded as Ajibon鈥檚 convoy was passing in the same area, although no one was killed or wounded in that attack, police said.
Ajibon is reportedly aspiring for a higher office in next year鈥檚 elections and investigators are trying to determine if the attack had something to do with the often-violent political rivalries in the south.
Among those injured in the bus bomb attack was a 9-year-old girl who suffered a serious head wound.
Past bombings of buses in the south have been blamed on Muslim insurgents and criminal gangs.
The Abu Sayyaf has been designated as a terrorist organization by the UN and the Philippines for deadly bombings, extortion, kidnappings for ransom and beheadings. It鈥檚 one of at least four Muslim rebel groups outside of a peace deal the government signed with the largest insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, last year.
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