Four people were wounded in two bomb attacks yesterday in the southern Philippines, police and military officials said. The first bomb exploded just before noon close to the administrative building of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in in Cotabato City, injuring a 14-year old girl, said regional police chief Sukarno Ikbala. Four hours later, another bomb went off under a tricycle near the gate of the public market in nearby Koronadal City, about 970 kilometers southeast of Manila. Koronadal police chief Florendo Quidilla said there were indications that the second bomb was home-made.
Quidilla said bomb-sniffing dogs found after the first explosion an unexploded bomb made from a mortar round and attached to a cellular phone that was apparently designed to trigger the device. It was later defused, he said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the police suspect the Al-Qaeda-linked group Abu Sayyaf was behind at least one of them. |