ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 21, 2011) – Police forces disrupted Friday a cardboard box suspected to contain a homemade bomb outside a department store in Zamboanga City, officials said.
Officials said the box, left outside the Shop-O-Rama, contained only sand and an old mobile phone, but the blast from the water disruptor shattered a display window.
“The box contained no bomb or explosive, but sand and an old cellular phone,” said Senior Superintendent Edwin de Ocampo, chief of the local police force.
De Ocampo said civilians called the police after they spotted the suspicious box. “Civilians are more vigilant now and are providing us information about like this, suspicious baggage,” he said.
Authorities are now in heightened alert in Zamboanga because of Tuesday fighting between troops and Muslim rebels in Basilan province that killed 19 soldiers and five guerillas, and the spate of attacks late Thursday that killed 8 soldiers and policemen in nearby Zamboanga Sibugay province.
Zamboanga City had been bombed many times in the past by rebels and in October 2002, two homemade explosive were detonated by the Abu Sayyaf at the Shop-O-Rama and Shopper’s Central department store killing at least seven and wounding about 150 people. (Mindanao Examiner)
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