Three people were killed and 18 injured when a homemade bomb exploded Thursday in an attack blamed on Islamic militants in a southern Philippine city, police and military officials said. The explosion occurred in front of a building housing the offices of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a congressman and the Philippine military's mutual fund in Zamboanga City, 875 kilometres south of Manila. Police Senior Superintendent Lurimer Detran said the building was in front of Philippines' Edwin Andrews Air Force Base, where civilian commuters were massing outside its gate to take a C-130 flight. The explosion was triggered by a 'command-detonated' homemade bomb that appeared to have been hidden in one of the bags of the civilian commuters, Army Colonel Darwin Guerra said. 'This is an act of terrorism,' he said.
Police Director General Avelino Razon ordered police in the insurgency-wracked southern region of Mindanao to heighten alert following the attack, according to regional police chief Director Jaime Caringal. Caringal said checkpoints have been set up in entry and exit points in Zamboanga and nearby urban centres.
Caringal said investigators were looking into the possible involvement of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the attack. 'The attack could be a retaliation for a recent clash in nearby Basilan province, where the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf suffered casualties,' he said.