Reformed terrorist killed in bomb attack

A congressman killed in a bomb blast outside the Philippine legislature was a former member of an al-Qaida-linked militant group who switched sides to support a US-backed offensive against them, police said today.

Wahab Akbar died of wounds shortly after the blast yesterday, along with an MP’s driver and a legislative staffer. Seven other people, including two members of Congress, were injured but expected to recover.

Police said Akbar appeared to be the target of the remotely-detonated explosion, which shattered one of the building’s entrances after a session had ended and MPs and their staff prepared to leave.

Akbar, a former Muslim separatist rebel who became governor of southern Basilan province, joined the extremist Abu Sayyaf group in the 1990s when it had just embarked on a campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate in the southern Philippines, said metropolitan Manila police chief Geary Barias.

But as the group gained notoriety for attacks on Christians, ransom kidnappings and beheadings of hostages, Akbar disassociated himself from the group and joined US-backed military operations against the militants on Basilan, Barias said.

But top officials said the blast was not necessarily a revenge attack by Abu Sayyaf.

Interior secretary Ronaldo Puno said the investigation was “pointing away from a terrorist attack and more of a directed assault on a certain individual”.

“There were threats on the life of Akbar,” Puno said. “The indications are that that was the case both in terms of location of the bomb and the manner it was set off.”

While he turned on the Muslim rebels, Akbar also had many political foes, including those who ran against one of his three wives who succeeded him as Basilan governor.

His second wife won as mayor of the provincial capital of Isabela, while the third lost in the race for mayor of another town.

Political rivalries in the southern Philippines are often accompanied by bloodshed, and assassinations of politicians are common.

“Political angle, personal angle, it’s too early to discount other possibilities,” Barias said.

Akbar, 47, began as a member of the Moro National Liberation Front, a Muslim rebel group that dropped its secessionist goal and signed a peace accord with the government in September 1996.

In 2002, as governor of Basilan, he welcomed US troops who arrived on the island to train Filipino soldiers battling the Abu Sayyaf.

Over the years, the island was gradually transformed from a militant hotbed into a showcase of counterterrorism success and humanitarian development.

The key Abu Sayyaf leaders were killed last year in a clash with Philippine marines on neighbouring Jolo island.

But some of the group’s fighters regrouped and returned to Basilan, where they have joined with other guerrillas to stage sporadic attacks.

At the bombing site, investigators suspected the house bomb might have been hidden on one of two parked motorcycles and then remotely detonated as Akbar approached his car, mortally wounding him and ripping the motorcycles apart, Barias said.

Investigators recovered parts of a mobile phone which may have been used to trigger the blast, he said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo urged people not to jump to conclusions about the attack. “We’re making a call against rumours, accusations that create confusion, fear and conflict,” she said.

The blast occurred amid heightened political tensions in the country as Arroyo faces a third impeachment attempt in as many years.