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Friday, August 12, 2005
Police chief oversees probe on Zambo blasts
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- National Police Chief Arturo Lomibao flew to this southern port city Thursday to check on the progress of the probe on the twin bombings that rocked the downtown area Wednesday night and injured 26 people.
The police official worked with local authorities, taking in information and visiting the areas where the bombs exploded, following an order from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to immediately solve the blasts and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Malacaņang said police are hunting down 10 Indonesian terrorists in connection with the blasts. National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said the Indonesians, from Jemaah Islamiyah--an extremist group linked to Al Qaida, could be linked to the blasts and two of them may already be in Manila scouting possible targets with the help of accomplices from the Abu Sayyaf group.
Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said they condemn these "latest attacks made against innocent civilians in Zamboanga."
"The police and military are under strict orders by the President to get to the root of these attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice," said Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye."
One of the bombs, placed underneath a parked vehicle, wounded at least five people and, as investigators sifted through the wreckage of the van Wednesday night, another went off at an inn atop a restaurant, Zamboanga Mayor Celso Lobregat said.
Lobregat, police regional chief Superintendent Prospero Noble, and other local officials accompanied Lomibao as he made his rounds of the blasts sites. He visited as well the Zamboanga City Medical Center, where the bombing victims are confined for medical treatment.
6 suspects
Most of those wounded in the twin bombings were questioned by the police. One of the victims, Aldrin Quinonos, was interrogated and his fingerprints taken by investigators.
No less than Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) regional head, Superintendent Gregorio Pimentel, questioned Quinones and CIDG personnel conducted a paraffin test on the victim.
Noble, meanwhile, said the two blasts were clearly the work of terrorists. He refused to identify the six suspects they've arrested in connection with the blasts.
Lobregat, on the other hand, said four of the 26 people wounded were being investigated for possible involvement. Zamboanga police spokesperson Felixberto Candado said one of them was ruled out as a suspect, but the three others were still being questioned.
They included a man who lost his left thumb, which Noble said was "very suspicious."
Noble said three other men who checked into a hotel on the same street also were being questioned. The men, all from nearby Basilan island--an Abu Sayyaf stronghold--checked into the hotel using aliases. At least one has a standing warrant of arrest, Noble said.
Candado said one theory is that the blast was premature, and that the terrorists were tinkering with the bomb when it went off.
Diversionary tactic
Police and military officials remained on high alert in the city and neighboring areas following the twin blasts, which authorities suspect were the handiwork of the Abu Sayyaf group.
Soldiers and policemen were seen patrolling downtown Zamboanga, as Lobregat met with security officials here to discuss how authorities could prevent similar attacks in the future.
In the blasts sites, bomb experts worked overnight, sifting on hundreds of debris for clues on the kind of explosives used in the attacks.
Intelligence officials blamed the bombings on the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group.
The military said Wednesday's blasts in Zamboanga, which tore through a minibus and an inn, could be meant as a diversionary tactic by the Abu Sayyaf to slow a military offensive against the group.
"This is a possible diversionary tactic due to the Maguindanao operation," said southern command chief Lieutenant General Alberto Braganza.
The militants, including Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani, have been in a cat-and-mouse chase with the military in the jungles of central Mindanao island since July.
Tip-off
Secretary Gonzales said in Manila that they were intensifying the search for two of 10 Indonesian terrorists believed to be already in Manila scouting possible targets with the help of accomplices from the Abu Sayyaf. Possible targets in Manila such as hotels and shopping malls had been alerted, he added.
Gonzales said the Philippines had received a tip-off from unspecified foreign governments about the 10 Indonesians who were believed to be from JI group behind the 2002 bombings on the island of Bali.
He declined to elaborate on the sources, but a security official said at least two top JI lieutenants who played key roles in the Bali attacks had slipped into the southern island of Mindanao.
The two were identified as Omar Patek and Dulmatin, whose real name is Joko Pitono and who allegedly helped assemble the bombs that killed 202 people on the Indonesian resort island.
Gonzales said the Indonesian suspects may be working closely with Dulmatin.
"What is important here is we are beginning to see a new development as far as terrorism is concerned in the Philippines," Gonzales said.
He said JI was beginning to employ non-Filipinos in its terrorist actions in the Philippines. "This to us is significant," he said.
Gonzalez also prodded Congress anew to pass the long-overdue Anti-Terrorist Act.
Twin blasts
In Wednesday's attacks in Zamboanga, the first bomb, planted under a parked mini-van along Campaner Street in downtown area, exploded around 7.20 p.m., wounding a group of civilians. The powerful blast destroyed the van completely and damaged two small buildings nearby.
Crime scene investigators said they found a crater the size of a basketball where the bomb was placed.
A second explosion ripped through the second floor of another building just 50 meters away from the main police headquarters in the busy business district. At least a dozen people were reported wounded in the blast Wednesday, but the number climbed to 26 by Thursday.
Witnesses said they saw a cloud of black mushroom smoke billowed from the second floor of the damaged building.
The blast tore through the second floor that houses the St. Anne's budget motel. Below the motel was a popular fast food restaurant Chowking and several smaller shops that were also destroyed by the explosion.
Paramedics on Wednesday rescued trapped and wounded motel guests from the second floor. The facade of the building was almost destroyed.
The mayor on Thursday ordered laborers to clean up the debris of shattered glass and twisted metals that littered the streets.
But the fear that gripped many locals were obviously difficult to erase. "It's so hard for us to see all these destruction. We are afraid because we don't know where the next bomb would explode or where the terrorist would strike next--the next victims could be us," said a 56-year old Pietra Domingo. (Cheng Ordoņez/Al Jacinto/Manila Standard Today/Sunnex)
(August 12, 2005 issue)
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