6 Wounded In Sulu Blast

SULU, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 02, 2008) – A homemade bomb explosion ripped through a bar near a military base in the largely Muslim province of Sulu in southern Philippines, wounding 6 people, officials said on Sunday.

Officials said bomb experts were investigating the type of explosive used in the attack late Sunday at the bar owned by a retired soldier in the village of Busbus just within meters of a military base in Jolo town. The blast damaged the bar’s walls and injured four women and two army intelligence agents.

“Six people are wounded in the blast, four women and two soldiers and we are still investigating the explosion,” Army Major Roel Ebreo, spokesman for the anti-terror Joint Task Force Comet told the Mindanao Examiner.

He said the victims were rushed to a military hospital in Jolo where Filipino and US military doctors treated their wounds, but their conditions remain unknown. A few hundred US troops are deployed in Sulu to help local soldiers defeat terrorism.

No group claimed responsibility for the bombing, but previous attacks on bars had been largely blamed by authorities to the Abu Sayyaf group tied to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya terrorists.

“We are determining what type of explosive was used and who is behind this blast,” Sulu police chief Julasirim Kasim said in a separate interview.

The motive of the attack was unknown and police put a tighter security in the area, but several bars outside the base had been bombed by Abu Sayyaf militants that killed and wounded dozens of soldiers and prostitute over the past years.

And despite of the attacks, the number of bars outside the base has also grown through the years, catering to mostly Christian soldiers deployed on the province of more than half a million Muslims. The selling of alcohol and prostitution is strictly prohibited in Sulu.

In February 2006, Abu Sayyaf militants detonated a bomb at a bar outside the base, killing 3 people and wounded more than two dozen others. A month later, the Abu Sayyaf bomb a cooperative store in Jolo town and killing 9 people and wounding more than 20 more. (With a report from Nickee Butlangan)