Bomb blasts believed averted in Mindanao

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines—The authorities claimed Saturday to have averted what could have been another day of terror in Mindanao with the recovery of at least four explosives in two separate locations.

Director Felicisimo Khu, Jr., head of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao, said the first discovery was made around 5:30 a.m. Saturday on an unspecified section of the Maguindanao highway and resulted in disarming of two explosives fashioned out of 60-mm and 81-mm mortar shells.

He did not give any precise location, saying only that the explosives were found near an electric pole. Police ordnance experts immediately rushed to the site to defuse the explosives, he said.

About six hours later, Khu said two more explosives were recovered in Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat province.

Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat are adjacent provinces.

Khu said a special team of policemen, acting on an intelligence report, found the bombs in an attaché case left inside the Tacurong City terminal.

“Perhaps there would have been many casualties if they exploded in the areas these were intended for,” he said.

Khu said the IEDs recovered were similar to the ones used in previous attacks in Central Mindanao and nearby areas, including the one that prematurely exploded near the North Cotabato provincial capitol in Kidapawan City on Friday.

The suspected bombers were killed in that blast.

As in his previous statements, Khu said they believed that the explosives and the one that exploded in North Cotabato on Friday belonged to a group of terrorists headed by Basit Usman who has been linked to  al-Qaida.

He was reportedly killed during a US drone attack  in Pakistan last year but Filipino authorities said the report was never been validated.

With a report from Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao