ZAMBOANGA CITY, 14 August 2005 — A false bomb alarm sent hundreds of panicked customers fleeing department stores and shops in Zamboanga yesterday, three days after two bomb attacks that injured 30 people in the southern city.

Police said a room attendant at the three-story Platinum 21 hotel in the city center saw an abandoned bag and told authorities he believed there was a bomb in it, said police Sgt. William Jones of the city’s bomb squad.

Word spread quickly through the inn and nearby shops, causing panic and nearly emptying nearby shops and restaurants.

The scare intensified when military and police bomb squads arrived with blaring sirens and bomb-sniffing dogs, witnesses said. The bomb squad later found that the bag contained a motorcycle seat, which a guest reclaimed.

"It was a false alarm. There were no explosives in the hotel,” one officer said.

Police have arrested three suspected militants from the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group for allegedly planting a bomb that blew up a van on Wednesday.

A second blast demolished an inn atop a nearby restaurant, though no suspects have been identified in that attack.

Since the bombings, the military and police have thrown a tight security net around Zamboanga City, about 850 kilometers south of Manila, deploying patrols in the city, home to the country’s main southern military camp. Officials said Wednesday’s bombings may have been intended to divert a major military offensive against Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani in a southern province.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said Thursday that authorities were on high alert in Manila and the southern cities of Cotabato and Davao — all targets of past bombings — for two possible suicide attackers from Indonesia.

He didn’t directly link them to the Zamboanga bombings.

Security officials were seen speaking to hotel executives, but details of the meeting were not made public. But posters warning on how to detect bombs and explosives and emergency telephone numbers were visibly on the hotel walls.

The presence of many patrolling government soldiers in Zamboanga, armed with automatic weapons, had turned the busy business district into a virtual garrison.