One dead, 12 injured as rebels bomb Manila mall
One dead, 12 injured as rebels bomb Manila mall
MANILA (Agencies): A bomb ripped through the Philippines' largest shopping mall on Sunday, leaving at least one dead and 12 injured as the government warned the population to brace for attacks linked to a separatist rebellion.
Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said the attack on the SM Megamall and an earlier blast at the Glorietta mall in the Makati financial district last Wednesday were the "consequence of military action" against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf.
Abu Sayyaf extremists are holding 21 mostly foreign hostages in the southern island of Jolo while the 15,000-member MILF is into a month-old offensive in the southern island of Mindanao after suspending peace talks with President Joseph Estrada.
Police said an "improvised explosive" packed with "either dynamite or black powder" went off around 4.15 p.m. (3.15 p.m. Jakarta time) outside the women's toilet of a cinema on the third floor of the Manila mall, Southeast Asia's largest.
The blast brought down part of the ceiling, while shattered glass from the toilet and ticket booths accounted for some of the injuries.
Police said a young man was killed and 12 others, most of them employees of the cinema, were injured.
Police armed with automatic rifles blocked off the third story section of the building where the cinema was located, while shopkeepers on other floors boarded up.
The bombing was the second in the Philippine capital since the Makati blast on Wednesday which left 13 people injured, sent the Philippine peso and stock prices crashing to 19-month lows.
A rocket-propelled grenade was also fired on the national police headquarters here a week ago, but there were no casualties or major damage.
The Manila police commander, Chief Superintendent Edgardo Aglipay, said 60 policemen were deployed at SM Megamall at the time of the blast.
"We always believed that if we (went) against the terrorists, the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, one of the options was to be urban terrorism," Mercado told reporters at the Megamall blast site.
"These terrorists are trying to bring down the will of the government to go against kidnappers and cowardly terrorists (who) are romping not only in Mindanao but are also bringing these difficulties here in the cities," he said on television earlier.
"Nothing would make the terrorists happier than to see the people in panic, and this is the reason that we have to have the cooperation of all sectors to be able to live through this particular difficult period of our lives."
Aglipay said his men continued to "improve security in places of assembly but there will always be security gaps." He appealed to the city's 10 million residents to "help us plug these gaps."
Mercado said the Estrada government would not be baited into suspending civil liberties or imposing other emergency measures in response to the "terrorist" attacks.
"I don't think there's a necessity for us to talk about emergency measures. The government has sufficient powers under the laws and under our constitution at the moment," he said.
The hostage crisis and the surge of Muslim militancy is Estrada's biggest security challenge. He cut short his visit to China and returned to Manila on Friday.
Estrada said he had also decided to postpone visits to France and Britain due to begin at the end of this month.
The fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf (Father of the Sword) group, which has held the hostages for four weeks, and the MILF are both fighting for a separate homeland in the south of this largely Roman Catholic country.
Government negotiators said they expected substantive talks with the Abu Sayyaf on Monday or Tuesday to involve chief Philippine negotiator Roberto Aventajado for the first time.
The hostages -- nine Malaysians, three Germans, two French, two South Africans, two Finns, two Filipinos and one Lebanese -- were snatched from Sipadan island resort on April 23.