COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 06, 2007) – Philippine authorities on Saturday ordered a heightened alert in Mindanao following two bombings that killed two people and wounded 32 others, officials said.
“We have taken steps to secure the safety of civilians and government installations,” Major Julieto Ando, a regional army spokesman, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said the blasts occurred in the busy business district of Kidapawan City in North Cotabato province at around 7 p.m.
Two improvised explosives, one of them attached to a parked mini-van, detonated one after the other along Quezon Boulevard, the army spokesman said.
Among the dead was a ten-year old girl, Annie Mae Lozada. Christian and Muslim religious leaders, he said, quickly condemned the attacks which coincided with the holy month of Ramadan.
No groups claimed responsibility for the twin attacks, but previous bombings in the area had been blamed by Filipino authorities to the Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiya and their local counterpart, the Abu Sayyaf.
Last month, two homemade bombs exploded inside two commuter buses in Marbel town and in Cotabato City.
Australia last month warned of terror attacks in the southern Philippines and banned its citizens from traveling to Mindanao.
Aside from Zulkifli bin Hir, authorities said two Jemaah Islamiya bomb-makers, Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both tagged by Jakarta as behind the 2002 Bali bombings, are also hiding in the southern region and so are about three dozen other accomplices. (Mindanao Examiner)
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