Bomb blast kills three in southern Philippines

A bomb explosion rocked a southern Philippine public market today, killing at least three people and wounding 20 others, police said, as officials warned that Muslim militants may try to disrupt this weekend’s Asian regional summit.

Chief Superintendent German Doria, the regional police chief, said the bomb went off at the public market in General Santos city, 600 miles south-east of Manila.

At least 20 people were wounded and rushed to the St Elizabeth Hospital in the city, some in serious condition, according to the hospital staff.

An intelligence official said police found another improvised bomb in the city and were examining it.

Doria said police had no suspects immediately but that the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiyah and its ally, the local Abu Sayyaf group, “usually are the ones doing all these explosions in the region.”

Philippine National Police chief Oscar Calderon, who is in Cebu to oversee security for the summit, said earlier today that militants may try to embarrass the government, a staunch U.S. ally in counterterrorism, by staging attacks during the summit.

Chief Superintendent Romeo Ricardo, director of the national police Intelligence Group, said police and army troops have launched operations against militants throughout the archipelago to prevent them from carrying out attacks.

Those operations led to the killing of five members of the local Abu Sayyaf Islamic extremist group and an Indonesian militant in southern Tawi Tawi province last week, and the arrest of a bomb suspect two days earlier just south-east of Manila, he said.

Military Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said troops killed another senior Abu Sayyaf member, Binang Sali.