Blast kills boy, 2 others wounded as President Arroyo visits Mindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 17, 2010) – An improvised bomb exploded Wednesday as President Gloria Arroyo inspected troops in the volatile region of the southern Philippines, officials said.

Officials said the blast killed a nine-year old Tata Palao and wounded two children in the town of Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao province where Arroyo visited.

The children were getting firewood in the village of Kabingi at around 11: 45 a.m. when Palao stepped on the mine, said Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Hao, spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.

Hao said the boy did not reach the hospital alive. He said the bomb was believed planted by Moro rebels a long time ago. “The IED was believed planted by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels a long time ago,” Hao told the Mindanao Examiner.

Arroyo inspected soldiers at an army base in the province as part of her visitation in Mindanao. The President is to step down in June after her term ends, but is also seeking a congressional seat in her hometown in Pampanga province in Luzon Island.

The MILF is the country’s largest Muslim rebel group which is currently negotiating peace with Manila. The explosion also occurred just as a team of international truce observers arrived in the province. (Mindanao Examiner)

Kidnappers free 2 hostages in the southern Philippines

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Search Continues For Kidnapped Mindanao Resort Owner

Police inspect the get-away car used by gunmen who kidnapped a resort owner Perfecto Martinez in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao province in the Muslim autonomous region. (Mindanao Examiner Photo / Ferdinandh Cabrera)

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / September 11, 2008) – Police continue to search for a kidnapped resort owner in the southern Philippines.

Gunmen seized Tuesday Perfecto Martinez, owner of the El Bimbo Resort, in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Shariff Kabunsuan, one of six provinces under the Muslim autonomous region.

Police have found the get-away car used by the gunmen, but there were no signs of the kidnapped victim. The gunmen allegedly demanded ten million pesos ransom from the hostage’s family in exchange for his safe release, police said.

Martinez was driving his car when gunmen flagged down the vehicle and forcibly took him.

Last month, gunmen also kidnapped a Filipino doctor, Milagros Yap, in Cotabato City near Shariff Kabunsuan town, but security forces rescued her after killing one the captors in a running gun battle. (Ferdinandh Cabrera and Mark Navales)

Philippine Troops Intercept Bomb, Detain 2 Men

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 12, 2008) – Philippine soldiers intercepted a homemade bomb and detained two men transporting the explosive in the province of Shariff Kabunsuan in Mindanao, officials said.

Officials said the soldiers discovered the bomb after stopping a commuter van at a checkpoint in the villager of Maker in Datu Odin Sinsuat town before dawn Wednesday.

Soldiers also questioned several passengers on suspicion they were part terrorists and handed them over to the local police for further interrogation. “We still don’t know anything about the suspects or their backgrounds. Authorities are investigating the suspects,” Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, told the Manila Times.

He said soldiers recovered two kilos of TNT explosive, a 60mm mortar rocket, electronic blasting caps and wires, galvanized iron nails and a cellular phone used as a detonator to trigger explosion.

Ando said civilian informants provided intelligence that led to the arrest of the suspects, including the van’s driver and one of the passengers. He did not say how many passengers were on board the van or whether other weapons had been recovered from the vehicle.

The military have repeatedly warned that terrorists may launch a series of attacks in retaliation to the killing of a purported Jemaah Islamiya bomber in the country's troubled south.

Southern Philippines military officials had said that soldiers recovered the body of man thought to be Dulmatin on a remote village in Tawi-Tawi province last month.

But DNA test by the Philippine National Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is yet to confirm whether the body was really that of Dulmatin, one of those who masterminded the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, 25 Britons and seven US citizens.

Filipino security officials had also said that Dulmatin was killed in previous government offensives in the southern Philippines.

Indonesian police said Dulmatin, half-Javanese and half-Arabic, was the man who mixed and assembled the 500kg bomb that destroyed the Sari Club during the Bali attack.

Dulmatin's assassination would be the biggest breakthrough in the hunt for the remaining Bali bombers the past years. Another Bali bomber, Umar Patek, is believed hiding in Sulu or Tawi-Tawi province under the protection of the local Abu Sayyaf group.

Philippine authorities last month also claimed to have uncovered a plot by the Jemaah Islamiya, the Abu Sayyaf, the New People's Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to assassinate President Gloria Arroyo and other high government officials. (With a report from Mark Navales)