Blasts blamed on students of JI leader

MANILA – STUDENTS of a terror leader affiliated with the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) are making known their presence in Mindanao through a series of bombing attacks, according to the military.

The latest bombing happened yesterday morning in front of the Commission on Audit (COA) satellite office inside the provincial capitol compound in Barangay Amas in Kidapawan City. No one was reported hurt.

Col. Prudencio Asto, public affairs chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said in Manila that the explosion appeared to be the work of followers of Usman Basit, a known JI operative specializing in making bombs.

Kidapawan police said the explosive was made from a 60-millimeter mortar attached to a mobile phone which served as triggering device. It went off at around 8:30 a.m., just when employees had entered the building near the provincial office of the Technical Skills and Development Authority (Tesda).

“This could be plain and simple harassment from a group against the COA or Tesda, a personal grudge, or part of a terror plot,” said Supt. Chino Mamburam, city police chief.

Last week, text messages were passed around, warning people to take extra caution of possible bombings while traveling in North Cotabato.

In Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat, four people were wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off outside a videoke bar.

Bomb experts also detonated an IED made from a rocket-propelled grenade with mobile phone as triggering device in General SK Pendatun town in Maguindanao.

Yesterday, another bomb was recovered in Esperanza town in Sultan Kudarat “on its way” to the target—General Santos City—before it was intercepted, the police said.

“This was the same group that Usman Basit had been training. Now they are being deployed and they are applying what they had learned from him,” Asto said of the Kidapawan blast.

Asto based his theory on the “signature” of the attack, as well as on traces of the IED recovered at the site. “It was the same—the same frequency, the same style. That’s really [Usman’s] expertise,” he said.

He said the motive was “of course, to wreak havoc among the populace and inform them that they are still around.”

“They want to make their presence felt, that they are still here. This is Usman’s instruction to them,” Asto said.

He noted that the recent attacks had had no direct targets. “This is their specialty. They just want to show they are still around, and they’re trying to prove that Usman Basit’s teachings to them are successful.”

Asked where Usman was, Asto said he had been caught by authorities and was detained by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

But the CIDG director, Chief Supt. Samuel Pagdilao Jr., could not immediately confirm this, saying he had not heard of Usman’s arrest.

Asto said the Philippine Army had deployed its men to verify Usman’s links to the attacks. “Our intelligence is always there, which is how we capture them. Sometimes, it’s their own men who give us tips about their activities,” he said.

“We are strengthening checkpoints because we know they’re mobile. But the good thing there is they don’t have specific targets. They are not targeting specific personalities in a mall, movie theater or church,” Asto said.

But the official said this did not necessarily bolster the renewed US travel advisory warning Americans about traveling to Mindanao. The advisory had not identified Central Mindanao as a terrorist target, he said. With a report from Carlo Agamon, Inquirer Mindanao