Thursday, November 15, 2007
Police rule out terrorism in Congress blast (3:41 p.m.)
MANILA -- Police ruled out terrorism in a deadly blast outside the legislature, saying Thursday that initial evidence suggested a Muslim lawmaker was the apparent target of the remotely detonated crude bomb.
The question of who was behind the blast that killed Basilan Representative Wahab Akbar and three other people remained unresolved. Seven others were injured.
Officials and the media described the slain congressman from southern Basilan province, as a likely target because he had suspected links with al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants, then backed military attacks against them.
He also had lived the colorful life of a former rebel, preacher, activist and one-time smuggler who turned the island province into his fiefdom, and along the way earned political foes.
"We have established that it is not a terrorist attack," said metropolitan Manila police chief Geary Barias.
"It was really targeted at (Akbar) because of the remote control detonation," he said, adding that terrorists would have likely used a timing device.
Barias said earlier the attacker was probably within Akbar's sight when the bomb on a parked motorcycle was detonated using a cell phone.
He said police have made no arrests so far.
In his only speech at the House of Representatives two months ago, Akbar, 47, said he joined his guerrilla father as a teenager in the Moro National Liberation Front, a Muslim rebel group that dropped its secessionist goal and signed a peace accord with the government in 1996.
He later took up Islamic studies in Syria, had military training in Libya and became a preacher and an MNLF deputy guerrilla commander.
Barias said Akbar joined the Abu Sayyaf in the 1990s when it had just launched a campaign to set up an Islamic caliphate in the southern Philippines.
As the group started attacking Christians, kidnapping for ransom and beheading hostages, Akbar quit and supported US-backed military operations against the militants in Basilan, Barias said.
Akbar denied any Abu Sayyaf links, calling such allegations "a lie told a thousand times" by the military, police and his political enemies.
But he admitted meeting with the Abu Sayyaf founder, Abdurajak Janjalani - who was killed in 1998 - while the two were in Libya and later in the Philippines. Akbar said Janjalani's behavior "is not acceptable to my taste."
As Basilan governor in 2002, he welcomed U.S. troops who trained Filipino soldiers battling the Abu Sayyaf. Over the years, the island was gradually transformed from a militant hotbed into a showcase of counter terrorism success and humanitarian development.
In his own words, Akbar said he used to be "a laborer, a driver, a bakery owner, a fishpond owner, a fish broker, a banana broker, a cigarette smuggler, a coconut harvester, a rebel, a student."
He had many enemies, including some who ran and lost against one of his three wives, who succeeded him as Basilan governor. Another wife won as mayor of the provincial capital.(AP) |
