ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 1, 2008) – Five people were hurt when a rifle grenade exploded near a military base in the southern Philippine island of Sulu, police said on Thursday.
Police said the M79 grenade exploded on a road in the village of Liang in Patikul town, injuring a minor, two teenagers and two adults, all of them civilians.
“We are still investigating the incident. We don’t know who fired the M79 grenade, but the military claimed it was an improvised explosive device,” Senior Superintendent Julasirim Kasim, the island’s police chief, told the Mindanao Examiner newspaper.
Kasim said there is an ongoing operation to collect illegal weapons in Sulu on orders from the island’s governor Sakur Tan.
Tan last year ordered police and military to arrest all civilians and politicians who own illegal weapons or maintain private armed gangs in an effort to rid Sulu of criminalities.
Kasim said the campaign is effective and has drastically reduced the proliferation of unlicensed firearms in Sulu.
But many illegal weapons are still in the hands of rebel groups, such as the Abu Sayyaf and the breakaway factions of the Moro National Liberation Front, which signed a peace agreement with Manila in 1996.
Security forces are battling the rebels in Sulu’s hinterlands where they usually seek cover from government offensives. The Abu Sayyaf is still holding a Chinese trader, Xili Wu, it seized in Sulu last month.
Authorities have tagged the Abu Sayyaf group as behind the spate of kidnappings and bomb attacks across Mindanao. The Abu Sayyaf, which means "The Bearer of the Sword," has been labeled a terrorist organization by both Manila and Washington, and is believed by the US to have links with the al-Qaeda terror network. (Mindanao Examiner)
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