5 dead, 32 wounded in bus blast

2008-09-01 16:00

Digos - Five people were killed and 32 others were wounded when a powerful bomb ripped through a packed passenger bus in the southern Philippines on Monday, police and disaster officials said.

The blast, caused by an improvised explosive device, tore through the bus, which was parked inside a terminal in the city of Digos on troubled Mindanao island, they said.

It was not immediately clear how many passengers were aboard the bus or how many people were at the terminal at the time of the explosion.

Witnesses quoted by police said the vehicle's roof and sides were ripped open by the force of the explosion.

"It was so powerful that the blast decapitated a civilian," said regional army spokesperson Major Armand Rico.

Four people were killed on the spot, while the fifth victim died in hospital of injuries sustained in the explosion, police said.

Rico said troops had been sent to the area to set up roadblocks along possible escape routes in a bid to catch the culprits.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the incident.

Officials had warned the public to brace for possible attacks by Muslim separatist rebels, who are on the run from a military offensive on Mindanao.

Full-blown war

The renegade guerrillas from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are responsible for a wave of deadly attacks this month on Mindanao. More than 100 rebels as well as more than 40 civilians and soldiers have been killed.

The clashes have put on hold peace talks between the government of President Gloria Arroyo and the MILF, which recently warned that the upsurge in violence could lead to a full-blown war in the mainly Roman Catholic country.

Police said they were also looking at the possibility the attack could have been carried out by a Muslim crime group known as the Al-Khobar gang as the bus firm, Metro Shuttle, had apparently received threats.

The gang is composed mostly of foreign Muslim rebels and preys on businesses in the south.

A Metro Shuttle official said last month that the gang had demanded 50 000 pesos (about R8 000) a month in extortion money, threatening attacks if it was not paid.

Provincial police chief Cesario Darantinao said that members of the gang were believed to be responsible for another bomb attack on a Metro Shuttle bus last month. That attack, also in Digos, killed three people.

"We had filed cases against them for multiple frustrated murder" in relation to the earlier bombing, Darantinao said, without disclosing the names of the suspects.

"These are most likely the same people based on description of the modus operandi," he said.

- AFP