Basilan, South Cotabato blasts kill 3, hurt 17

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Two explosions tore through a city in war-weary Basilan province and a town in South Cotabato province Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding 17 others.

The first blast took place past noon near the house of Mayor Cherrylyn Akbar inside Sunset village in Isabela City, Basilan.

Police said it was too early to say if the attack was politically motivated.

In the town of Polomolok, South Cotabato, police said a bus was hit by a bomb thrown likely by extortionists.

Supt. Albert Larubis, Isabela police director, said police had started securing the area outside Akbar’s house.

While speculation is rife that the attack was politically motivated, it was not clear if Akbar was the target as the house of another politician, Vice Mayor Abdulbaki Ajibon, is just across Akbar’s.

It was not known if Akbar was at home at the time of the explosion.

IED

Navy Commander Roy Vincent Trinidad, chief of staff of the Naval Forces in Western Mindanao, said the Isabela explosion took place past 1 p.m. and was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED).

He said the blast damaged the Toyota Hilux pickup truck owned by  Ajibon.

Trinidad said at least three security escorts of Ajibon were killed instantly while five other people in another vehicle were wounded.

Bomb experts are scouring the area to retrieve pieces of evidence.

It was not the first bomb attack in Isabela City that appeared to be aimed at Akbar, however.

On Feb. 15, 2013, a homemade bomb went off outside Akbar’s house, just 30 minutes after police found and deactivated another explosive nearby.

No one was harmed in the blast, but it created a

0.61-meter-wide crater.

Akbar was also not at home when the 2013 blast took place.

On May 31, 2012, a similar explosion occurred outside Akbar’s residence, hitting a vehicle owned by Ajibon. No casualty was reported.

Extortion

In Polomolok, South Cotabato, 12 people were wounded when an IED went off aboard a unit of Yellow Bus Line Thursday.

Senior Supt. Jose Briones, provincial police director, said the bus, with license plate MWD-296, had just left the bus terminal for General Santos City when the explosion took place.

Briones said initial results of the investigation showed that the bomb went off in the middle of the bus, which had come from Koronadal City.

Taken to the St. Elizabeth Hospital in General Santos City were Jerwin Cabuyao, his wife Abigail and their 7-day-old baby Akisha Gale Cabuyao, all residents of Apopong, General Santos.

At least nine others were brought to General Santos Doctors Hospital.

Briones said police were looking at extortion as the possible motive for the attack.

Groups linked to the Pentagon Gang have been suspected to be behind bomb attacks on buses owned by firms that refuse to pay protection money.

One of the bus firms targeted is Yellow Bus, owned by the General Santos City-based Yap family.

Authorities have said that attacks on Yellow Bus were the work of either the Al-Khobar or the Pentagon Gang.

Both groups were said to be composed of former Moro rebels, such as Pentagon leader Alonto Tahir, who was former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front.