The Philippine military yesterday stepped up security in key urban centers in the troubled south after two separate bomb explosions injured four people, while in the north soldiers clashed with communist rebels, killing two.
Major General Agustin Dema-ala said the Abu Sayyaf rebel group and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) were the main suspects in the separate bomb attacks in the cities of Cotabato and Koronadal on Saturday.
"Based on previous experience, the Abu Sayyaf and the JI are the groups capable of launching such attacks," he said, adding that the bombings could have been a "diversionary tactic to ease the pressure" from unrelenting military offensives.
PHOTO: AFP
"We have beefed up our security," he added, noting that intelligence information indicated that the Abu Sayyaf and the JI were plotting to "launch a series of attacks" in key cities in the southern region of Mindanao.
Four hours apart
The first attack hit the compound of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in Cotabato City, where the homemade bomb explosion injured a 13-year-old girl, officials said.
Four hours later, an improvised bomb ripped through a public market in Koronadal City, injuring three people. The explosive device was planted in a tricycle parked at the entrance of the public market.
Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Del Prado, an army division spokesman, said troops would continue to hunt down Abu Sayyaf rebels and JI militants believed to be hiding in nearby towns and villages of Maguindanao Province despite the bomb attacks.
Del Prado said recent information indicated that Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadafi Janjalani, and senior leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Abu Solaiman were trapped in Maguindanao.
"We are not certain right now if there are foreigners with them," he said. "They are trapped in the border of Talayan and Guindulungan towns. Our operation will continue without let-up."
Janjalani, Hapilon and Solaiman are wanted by the US, which has offered up to US$5 million in cash rewards for their arrest or prosecution.
Communist rebels
Meanwhile, in the northern part of the country, army troops clashed with communist guerrillas early yesterday in a brief but fierce gunbattle that left two rebels dead and a soldier wounded, the military said.
An army reconnaissance team engaged about 15 New People's Army fighters near Santa Lucia town in northern Ilocos Sur Province, killing two rebels and seizing their assault rifles, according to a military report.
An army corporal was wounded in the clash about 290km north of Manila, the military said. The rest of the guerrillas withdrew into the nearby hinterlands and were being pursued, it added.
The rebels have suspended talks with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's government on ending the 36-year-old Marxist insurgency. They have vowed to intensify attacks in an effort to help oust Arroyo, who is facing impeachment over vote-rigging allegations and charges that her family received illegal gambling payoffs.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
RSS