COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 23, 2008) – Philippine soldiers intercepted a motorcycle rigged with explosives in Mindanao province where President Gloria Arroyo toured, military officials said Wednesday.
Officials said the motorcycle was recovered near a military checkpoint in the village of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province in the Muslim autonomous region where Arroyo toured since Tuesday. Arroyo left the province on Wednesday after a meeting with military and regional government officials over rehabilitation plans on areas devastated by typhoons.
Officials said troops recovered the motorcycle late Tuesday afternoon, apparently abandoned by its driver due to a flat tire before it could the checkpoint. “We see the signature of the Jemaah Islamiya in this motorcycle bomb,” Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, a spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said the military had received intelligence reports this week that terrorists could be planning to attack civilian targets using motorcycles rigged with explosives. He said the motorcycle had come from the town of Mamasapano where it was allegedly assembled.
Ando said military explosives’ experts disassembled the motorcycle and found an improvised explosive device composed of TNT inside its air cleaner and connected to a detonator and a cellular phone that served as triggering device.
Another military report tagged rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with ties to the Indonesian terror group as behind the botched bombing. Philippine authorities said the Jemaah Islamiya, blamed for the 2002 Bali bombing which killed 202 people, has been linked in previous attacks in Mindanao and Manila.
It said the motorcycle was en route to Davao City, which was previously bombed by JI and MILF rebels. It said some MILF commanders were providing sanctuary or coddling JI militants in Mindanao. The military said suspected MILF rebels also attacked Tuesday a group of government militias and killed a woman and wounding her daughter in North Cotabato province.
The MILF, which is negotiating peace with the government, said the fighting was triggered by attacks of militias on two groups of rebels in Aleosan and New Valencia towns. It also denied it anything about the motorcycle bomb. “We have nothing to do the motorcycle bomb recovered by troops,” Eid Kabalu, an MILF spokesman, said. (Mindanao Examiner)
No comments:
Post a Comment