Festival bomb kills six, injures 29

At least six people were killed and another 29 wounded when a bomb exploded during a town festival today in the southern Philippines.

Security forces were on alert for possible attacks in the area by al Qaida-linked militants, officials said.

North Cotabato police chief Federico Dulay said the bomb, believed to be made from an 88mm mortar shell, went off in front of the town hall of Makilala town, in the southern part of the province.

“Clearly this is a terrorist act,” Mr Dulay said.

He initially reported 12 dead, but Makilala Mayor Onofre Respicio, overseeing victims at nearby Kidapawan city hospital, later said bodies had been double-counted while being transferred between two medical facilities and only six died, with nine people in a serious condition and undergoing surgery tonight, the 52nd anniversary of Makilala’s founding.

“They chose this day, when our people were all celebrating, to do this attack,” said Mayor Respicio, urging the public to help bring the perpetrators to justice. “Who can do such a thing, kill so many people who are innocent?”

Another bomb injured five people earlier today in a public market in Tacurong city, in southern Sultan Kudarat province, amid warnings that a terrorist group may be planning to carry out bombings in the southern Mindanao region in retaliation for the arrest of a fugitive terror suspect’s wife.

The US Embassy said it had “credible information” about possible attacks, particularly in cities in central Mindanao, “over the next several days”.

Two Philippine security officials monitoring the area agreed, citing last week’s arrest of Istiada Binti Oemar Sovie on southern Jolo island, in the Mindanao region.

Sovie is the wife of Dulmatin, one of Asia’s most wanted terror suspects for his alleged role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

“There were so many people, then suddenly people were begging for help,” said Ryan Rosales, who had been selling balloons with his father. They were eating in a food stall when the blast killed the woman serving them.

Shrapnel hit 17-year-old Rosales in both feet and his right arm, and his father in the left shoulder.

“It was a very very loud explosion and it made the ground shake,” the 17-year-old Rosales said from a nearby hospital.

“I felt dizzy and my ears hurt. My father jumped to hug me, but he, too, later slumped and sat on the ground holding his ears.”

A row of commercial stalls, a carnival and cultural presentations have attracted crowds this week in the city of 63,000 residents. The powerful explosion destroyed a row of stalls and two motorcycle taxis and left a crater in the asphalt road, Dulay said.

“The area is a total wreck,” Mr Dulay told local radio.

Makilala is a small banana and rubber-producing town 590 miles south-east of Manila.

Communist and Muslim guerrillas are known to have a presence in the town.