After blast, 2 planted bombs defused

LAMITAN, Basilan – (UPDATE) Army troops defused a powerful bomb outside a school Sunday in Basilan, where the night before a blast destroyed a lodging house and another explosive was found near a hotel in attacks blamed on Abu Sayyaf extremists.

An army ordinance team safely defused the bomb, believed to be made from ammonium nitrate and attached to two cellular phones, after patrolling soldiers discovered the explosive in a biscuit can in front of a school compound in Lamitan town, said provincial military commander Colonel Alex Macario.

Soldiers cordoned off the area as a soldier, taking cover behind a tree, cut the wires protruding from the explosive with a long bamboo pole fitted with metal hooks, according to witnesses.

The military tightened security in Lamitan after a bomb exploded in a lodging house late Saturday, destroying the small wood and concrete building but causing no injuries, Macario said.

Two men checked in then left before the blast at the lodging house, often used by transient rubber plantation workers. The owner apparently resisted an extortion attempt by an armed group before the attack, regional police commander Felicisimo Khu Jr. said.

Shortly after the blast, troops found another bomb, which was packed with nails for added lethal power, near a budget hotel in Basilan’s capital city of Isabela, officials said.

The Army received reports that the Abu Sayyaf has planned to bomb a cathedral, small hotels and gas stations in Basilan, about 880 kilometers south of Manila, Macario said.

In Zamboanga City, Senior Superintendent Alex Leyneses said no one was hurt in the explosion that ripped through the Spasky Lodging House in Barangay Maligaya.

Leyneses said prior to the blast, two men checked-in at the lodging house. He said witnesses described the suspects as in their late 20s.

“They were seen carrying a green plastic bag when they checked out from the place. A few minutes after, there was an explosion,” he said.

Three hours later, another bomb was found in Isabela City.

Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, said a patrol unit of the 15th Special Forces Co. found the bomb along JS Alano Street in Isabela City at around 9:30 p.m.

“The IED was inside a shoulder bag containing a doll figurine with a cellular phone and wiring attached on the said unit,” Cabangbang said.

The police’s Special Action Force detonated the explosive.

Cabangbang said there was no clear indication on who were responsible for planting the bombs. AP; Julie S. Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao