Roadside bomb found in Tacurong; cops say terror attack foiled

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—Police authorities on Thursday claimed to have foiled another attempt to sow terror in Tacurong City, with the discovery of a powerful improvised explosive device in a highway leading to the city Wednesday night.

Superintendent Danilo Peralta, Sultan Kudarat police director, citing a report from the Tacurong City police, said the IED was fashioned from an 81-millimeter mortar shell with an electronic wall clock as timing device.  It was found about 600 meters away from a police detachment in Barangay Grino, Tacurong City, past 6 p.m., he said.

Peralta said a passerby noticed the sack left unattended by the roadside, near a rice field and alerted the police about it.

Director Felicisimu Khu, chief of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations-Western Mindanao, said the bomb courier could have been intimidated by the presence of uniformed policemen at the checkpoint and decided to abandon the IED.

Khu said the IED was the 11th bomb recovered in Central Mindanao in two months’ time.

Asked who could be possibly behind the latest attempt, Khu said the name of Basit Usman, a local bomb making expert with ties to regional terror group Jemaah Islamiya, always came out during intelligence information gathering.

Usman was reported killed during a US drone strike in Pakistan in 2010 but authorities said the information was never validated.