Cotabato bombing not work of terrorists – Police

COTBATO CITY, Philippines – The bomb that killed one person and injured 11 others in Cotabato City last Wednesday was actually much more primitive than the device the military initially claimed was fashioned out of a mortar shell and remotely detonated with cellular phones, police said.

Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu, head of Task Force Kutawato, said Friday that laboratory tests on remnants of the bomb showed that the improvised explosive device planted underneath a motorcycle consisted of a bundle of dynamite sticks with a fuse that was attached to a lighted cigarette or mosquito coil.

Lieutenant Colonel Prudencio Asto, spokesman of the 6th Infantry Division based in Maguindanao, had claimed that the bomb consisted of a mortar shell with a cellphone for triggering device that was remotely detonated.

Asto said it was the signature device of terrorists linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah and that new recruits trained by Basit Usman had set up Wednesday’s explosion, which killed a 52-year-old park photographer and wounded 11 other persons, including two minors.

Usman, who was blamed for most major bomb attacks in Mindanao in recent years, was reportedly killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in January last year.

Khu said on Friday that no forensic traces had been found to suggest Wednesday’s explosion was caused by an 80-millimeter mortar shell or was remotely detonated.

He said it was not true either that tiny pieces of a Nokia cellular phone had been recovered from the scene.

Superintendent Roberto Badian, Cotabato City police director, said that instead of looking at the possible involvement of the JI, the police were zeroing in on a reported property dispute between gun store owner Jayvee Martinez and his relatives.

The blast occurred just outside the gun store on Quezon Avenue, not far from the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, which was also bombed in July 2009.

Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, Cotabato City administrator, said the police’s finding supported the local government’s view that the explosion had nothing to do with terrorist groups.

“The angle seen by police is personal grudge and not terrorism. Jayvee Martinez allegedly has personal grudges with his relatives over property issues. He allegedly sold all their properties and deprived relatives of their rights,” Sayadi told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.

Muslims here who had objected to the military’s linking of the blast to the JI, said they were relieved by the police findings.

Arabani Mustapha, a Muslim preacher and cousin of the lone fatality, said the military claim was injected with religious color, especially since the bombing was linked to the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

He said the report “virtually burdens Muslim clerics to explain why Islam followers should not be indicted for a crime blamed on a certain Basit Usman.”

Alex Musa, a Muslim canon lawyer, said that Ramadan was vilified for the first time because of careless statements.