Six killed, 144 hurt in twin Philipinnes blasts

TWO bombs exploded yesterday in the southern Philippines city of Zamboanga, killing six people and injuring at least 144.

The bombings were the second major bomb attack in South-East Asia in five days. 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 died.

There was chaos on the streets of Zamboanga as 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 perpetrators are more or less connected, or there is some connection in bombings occurring in the region,” Lauro Baja, foreign undersecretary said in the capital, Manila.

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 said, referring to the group based in Indonesia that some link to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

The twin explosions 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. Local media reports said four Pakistanis were also questioned.

The dead were two policemen and four shoppers, including a child. It was not clear what the officers were doing in the mall.

“One can only weep at what these terrorists have done,” Zamboanga Mayor Maria Clara Lobregat said. At least 20 of the 143 injured were in critical condition, she said.

Zamboanga has been the scene in recent years of bombings blamed on the Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, whom the US has linked to al-Qaida.

Some 260 US 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 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.

Heavily armed troops then ringed the area as investigators brought in sniffer dogs to check for further explosives. Thirty minutes later, an explosion rocked another mall nearby.

“My God, my God,” a shopper moaned, burying his face in his hands, after seeing the headless corpse of one of the victims.

Blood smeared the floors of the hospital where doctors and paramedics worked furiously to save lives.

“The bombings are apparently co-ordinated,” southern military command chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya said. “They are targeting crowded places where there are plenty of civilians.Two bombs exploded today in the southern Philippines city of Zamboanga, killing five people and injuring at least 144.”

The blasts occurred about two weeks after a homemade bomb believed planted by the Abu Sayyaf exploded near a Zamboanga karaoke bar, killing a US soldier and two Filipinos.