Bombs in RP mall kill six, Jamaah suspected
Bombs in RP mall kill six, Jamaah suspected
Reuters, Zamboanga, Philippines
Bombs ripped through the main shopping district of a mostly Christian city in an area of the southern Philippines at the heart of Moro insurgency on Thursday, killing six and wounding about 150.
It was the second major bomb attack in Southeast Asia in less than a week and suspicion immediately focused on a radical religious group also being investigated for Saturday's explosions on the Indonesian island of Bali, in which more than 180 people died.
Shouts of "There's a bomb", "Another explosion", "Run...Run" rent the air in the city of Zamboanga as terrified shoppers and shopkeepers ran on to narrow streets littered with wreckage, glass and mutilated bodies from the twin midday blasts.
Troops found and defused at least two other bombs.
The military blamed radicals fighting for an Islamic state in the south of the Roman Catholic nation and said investigators were looking into the possible involvement of the militant Jamaah Islamiah group.
"All threat groups are suspect in this incident, including the Jamaah Islamiah...and others," armed forces deputy spokesman Lt. Col. Danilo Servando told reporters in Manila, referring to the Indonesia-based group linked by some to Osama bin Laden's al- Qaeda network.
The twin explosions in Zamboanga came amid a heightened security alert across the country after the Bali bombings, in which carnage Jamaah Islamiah is also suspected.
Police said they were questioning 16 people, including two Turkish nationals and a Malaysian, over the Zamboanga explosions.
Zamboanga Mayor Maria Clara Lobregat said six people were killed and that at least 20 of the 143 injured were in critical condition. The dead included at least three women and a child. One man's head was blown off.
Zamboanga has been the scene in recent years of bombings blamed on the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, whom the United States has linked to al-Qaeda, prime suspect in last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Some 260 U.S. troops are in Zamboanga, the remnants of a 1,000-strong force which spent six months in the area this year to train Filipino soldiers in eliminating the Abu Sayyaf. Police said no foreigners were hurt in the blasts.
The first bomb, which exploded around noon (11 a.m. in Jakarta) in the Shop-o-Rama mall, wrecked cars, flung motorcycles down the street and tore open shuttered shops. One man was thrown through a plate glass window. Police were seen later dragging away bodies, some horribly disfigured.
Police cordoned off the streets around the shopping complex where bunting hung incongruously under the baking sun. One corner shop advertized European bread for sale.
Heavily armed troops then ringed the area as investigators brought in sniffer dogs to check for further explosives.
Investigators said the first blast occurred in or near the vegetable section of the crowded Shop-o-Rama, one of the most popular malls in Zamboanga. Thirty minutes later, an explosion rocked a store nearby.
"The bombings are apparently coordinated," newly installed southern military command chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya told reporters. "They are targeting crowded places where there are plenty of civilians."
The blasts occurred about two weeks after a homemade bomb exploded near a karaoke bar in the city, killing a U.S. soldier and two Filipino civilians. Police blamed that explosion, on Oct. 2, on the Abu Sayyaf.
Zamboanga, a city of 700,000 people 860 km (535 miles) south of Manila, lies on the southern coast of the politically volatile Mindanao island, where Muslims have been fighting for a separate homeland for over three decades.