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| Southeast Asia |
| Bombs found at mall in the southern Philippines |
| 2005-03-02 |
| Philippine police said on Wednesday they defused three bombs disguised as mobile phones at a shopping mall in General Santos, two weeks after a deadly blast in the southern port city on Valentine's Day. Police said the bombs were designed to cause fires. Possible motives included extortion, a business rivalry and an attack by Muslim militants, they said. The discovery on Tuesday evening sent security forces on full alert after three bombings on Feb. 14 killed 13 people in Manila's business district, General Santos and Davao, another port city on the troubled southern island of Mindanao. "Vigilant sales staff alerted us about the bombs after a mobile phone was found in the pocket of a pair of pants on display," Chief Superintendent Antonio Billiones, the police chief of the southern part of Mindanao, told reporters. Bomb-sniffing dogs found two similar devices on the second floor of the KCC mall in General Santos, hidden under stacks of shirts and jeans in the menswear section. No group has claimed responsibility for the mobile phone bombs, which investigators said smelled of kerosene. Police set up checkpoints in five southern cities -- General Santos, Davao, Cotabato, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro --which intelligence officials said were known targets for militants. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |