New wave of bomb threats put Philippine capital on high alert
New wave of bomb threats put Philippine capital on high alert
Agencies, Manila
Police in the Philippine capital have gone on full alert
following the discovery on Wednesday of two bombs on the city's
train system which is used by nearly half a million commuters
daily.
President Gloria Arroyo said police "have narrowed down the
suspects", but would not discuss their identities.
Police say they have not ruled out the possibility that
separatist guerrillas, communist rebels, or even supporters of
detained former president Joseph Estrada who is now on trial for
corruption, might be behind the bombing scares.
The camp of detained former president Joseph Estrada, on trial
for corruption, denied any involvement in alleged destabilization
efforts against Arroyo.
In the third such incidents in three days, police at dawn
Wednesday removed grenades rigged to batteries at two busy
stations of Manila's overhead rail system.
Arroyo's National Security Adviser, Roilo Golez, said the
grenades recovered on Wednesday, like earlier packages removed
from a sidewalk and near a hotel at the Makati financial district
the two previous nights, all lacked detonators.
"Our analysis is that this is not an act of terrorists.
Definitely not. More likely (it is) an act of a political group
who would like to deliver a political message," he told
reporters.
"There is no intent to kill and hurt because those explosive
materials would not detonate. They were not set up in order to
detonate. They are set up in a harmless way."
Leaflets left with the explosive packages demanded that the
Southeast Asian archipelago be split into three federal states --
for indigenous people, Muslims and Christians.
An obscure group, calling itself the "Indigenous Federal State
Army" has claimed responsibility for planting the devices.
Metropolitan Manila police chief Director-General Edgardo
Aglipay linked the Manila bombs to at least three similar devices
disarmed in the southern city of Cotabato last week which were
claimed by the similarly named "Indigenous People's Federal
Army."
Paul Daza, senior vice-president of the overhead railway
authority said they were reviewing video footage of security
cameras at the sites and remarked "we may be able to identify one
person" responsible for planting the bomb.
He said it was too early to tell whether the bomb scare had
affected the volume of commuters.
Aglipay said police would be on heightened alert but the
public "should not be afraid. They should be vigilant.
"We should report any suspicious-looking persons or bags," he
added.
Moro extremists have staged bombing attacks in the south in
recent months as U.S. and Philippine forces mount joint
operations against local allies of the al-Qaeda network of
suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Spokesmen of the main separatist rebel group, the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) and the communist New People's Army
(NPA), have denied in television interviews that their groups
were behind the latest bomb scares.
In a related development, two people have been killed and nine
other people, including two policemen, were wounded in clashes
involving rogue Moro guerrillas and communist rebels in the
southern Philippines, the military said on Wednesday.
An Army unit fought with a rogue unit of the MILF near the
town of Naga before dawn Tuesday, leaving two of the gunmen dead
and five others wounded and captured, the southern Philippines
military command said in Zamboanga.
Meanwhile, Arroyo on Wednesday ordered a Holy Week cease-fire
with communist rebels to allow guerrillas to release a captive
army sergeant in the southern Philippines.
Communist rebel spokesman Gregorio Rosal said in radio
interviews the rebels will not wage "tactical offensives" during
the March 28-31 holiday as a sign of respect for Lent observed by
the predominantly Catholic nation.
Arroyo told a radio program that the rebels should "take pity"
on Sgt. Jeremias Rosette, who was captured in September along
with two other men and a woman suspected as government spies by
the rebels in a southern province.