ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – At least four persons – including three children – were injured in another explosion that took place in Barangay Ayala here around 6:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Senior Supt. Angelito Casimiro, the city police director, said bomb experts have been sent to determine the type of explosive that went off in Zone 7.
He said the explosion, which took place just a few meters away from the house of Barangay (village) Ayala chairman Diosterides Librero, left Jaime Nalzaro, 44, three children, ages 6, 7, and 9, wounded.
It was the latest bomb attack to have transpired in the village in recent months.
On November 11, 2013, unidentified suspects lobbed a grenade at the residence of Librero – which killed two persons and wounded 10 others, including the village chief.
Last August 7, another explosion took place in the same village, just a few meters away from the police station there.
In April, four people were also wounded in a similar attack there.
Casimiro said the police were still investigating the explosions in Barangay Ayala and other bomb attacks that took place in the city.
He said the police were making progress in its investigation and cited the recent filing of charges against five persons, including the wife of a police intelligence officer, for the January 23 explosion in the city that left two persons dead and injured more than 50 others.
He said the suspects – Muammar Askali, Midel Isnaji, Nidz Asmad, Aldamer Sahibuddin and Babylin Muallam, the wife of a police intelligence officer in Sulu, were at large, as ofWednesday (Aug. 26) and were still being hunted down.
Muallam allegedly owned the vehicle that was used for the car bomb that exploded outside a bar on Maria Clara Lobregat highway in Guiwan village here on January 23.
Police investigation showed that the vehicle was rigged with a bomb fashioned from three 60-millimeter mortar rounds and TNT.
He said Askali, a self-proclaimed spokesperson of the Abu Sayyaf Group, was a relative of Muallam. (Julie S. Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao)