Suspected Muslim extremists planted a homemade bomb in a southern Philippine town to disrupt Independence Day celebrations early yesterday, killing a bomb disposal expert who was trying to defuse the device, an army commander said.
A soldier and a police officer controlling the crowds were injured in the blast.
Local residents found the bomb inside a black plastic bag at the gate of the Plaza Rizal in Jolo town close to a popular restaurant and alerted the authorities who sent an army bomb squad to defuse it.
Brigadier-General Gabriel Habacon, head of an anti-terrorist task force in Jolo, said intelligence reports indicated the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group planned to set off a bomb during the town's Independence Day celebrations.
The reports prompted authorities to transfer the celebrations from the plaza to the municipal hall compound. The bomb, fashioned from an 81-mm mortar shell, is similar to those manufactured by Muslim separatists and the Abu Sayyaf, which is active in Jolo, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Lucero said.
He said the bomb was "probably remote controlled."
Witnesses said a sergeant from the bomb disposal team was cutting wires attached to the device when it exploded. His body parts were strewn across the street.
Shrapnel hit an air force soldier and a police officer who were trying keep onlookers away from the site, the witnesses said.
The airman was flown to a military hospital in the nearby port city of Zamboanga and the police officer was taken to a local hospital, Lucero said.
Doctors said the two men were under observation. The airman suffered chest wounds and the police officer was hit in the head, they said.
Earlier this month, a suspected Abu Sayyaf member was arrested with bomb-making materials, including 81-mm mortar shells.
Naval intelligence agents arrested the suspect, Alzhezar Jila, following a tip-off from an informant who claimed the Abu Sayyaf planned to bomb a ferry between Jolo and Zamboanga.
The Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for several bomb attacks. The group also has claimed that it bombed a ferry off Manila that caught fire after an explosion on Feb. 27, killing more than 100 people.
Police have arrested the alleged ferry bomber, but investigators have found no forensic evidence backing the guerrillas' claim.
Jolo is about 950km south of Manila.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
TIGHTENING: Zhu Hengpeng, who worked for an influential think tank, has reportedly not been seen in public since making disparaging remarks on WeChat A leading Chinese economist at a government think tank has reportedly disappeared after being disciplined for criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a private chat group. Zhu Hengpeng (朱恆鵬), 55, is believed to have made disparaging remarks about China’s economy, and potentially about the Chinese leader specifically, in a private WeChat group. Zhu was subsequently detained in April and put under investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Zhu worked for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for more than 20 years, most recently as the Institute of Economics deputy director and director of the Public Policy Research Center. He
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
RSS