Posted on Thu, Oct. 17, 2002

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 Muslim insurgency on Thursday, killing five people and wounding 144.

It was the second major bomb attack in southeast Asia in less than a week and suspicion immediately focused on a radical Muslim 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 Jemaah Islamiah group.

"All threat groups are suspect in this incident, including the Jemaah Islamiah...and others," armed forces deputy spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel 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 Jemaah Islamiah is also suspected.

Police said they were questioning 16 people, including two Turkish nationals and a Malaysian, over the Zamboanga explosions.

Asked if Muslim extremist groups might be involved, Zamboanga Mayor Maria Clara Lobregat said: "Most probably. They are the only ones who would do this. One can only weep at what these terrorists have done."

HEAD BLOWN OFF

She 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 Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, whom the United States has linked to al Qaeda, prime suspect in last year's September 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 (0400 GMT) 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 advertised 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.

Allen Yusuf, with heavily bandaged face, told television reporters from hospital, "I was buying cigarettes just outside Shop-o-Rama. I heard a loud explosion and it knocked me out."

Police found two other bombs in the area and detonated them.

"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."

Blood smeared the floors of the hospital where doctors and paramedics worked furiously to save lives. A policeman stood by with the words "Stop Death" inscribed on the back of his uniform.

At least one man had his limbs blown off by a blast.

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 October 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.

The region is home to most of the four million Muslim minority in an overwhelmingly Christian country of 76 million.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2002