Teener killed, 22 hurt in North Cotabato blast

COTABATO CITY–A teenager was killed while 22 people were hurt when a third explosion rocked North Cotabato barely a week after improvised explosive devices were discovered in several parts of central Mindanao.

Senior Inspector Jordaen Maribojo, police chief of Carmen, said a grenade exploded at a packed carnival in his town on Monday evening killing 19-year-old Joseph Tumilde. Most of the wounded, he said, were children.

Maribojo said initial investigation showed a man tossed a hand grenade into a group of people gathered around one of the carnival attractions.

He said police suspect one of those in the crowd may have had a quarrel with the grenade thrower.

Last Saturday, an explosion occurred in Kabacan, North Cotabato, but no one was injured.

A few hours after the blast outside the campus of the government-run University of Southern Mindanao, authorities recovered at least four unexploded IEDs fashioned out of mortar shells.

Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu, chief of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao, said that followers of Basit Usman were being eyed in the Kabacan incident.

Usman is an alleged foreign-trained bomber with ties to the Jemaah Islamiyah who is blamed for a string of bomb attacks in central Mindanao and other areas since 2000. Edwin Fernandez, Jeoffrey Maitem and Charlie Señase, Inquirer Mindanao

Originally posted: 10:33 am | Tuesday, November 15th, 2011