ZAMBOANGA CITY/GENERAL SANTOS, 12 January 2007 — Police yesterday said they were still searching for clues to Wednesday’s bomb attacks in three key cities of Central Mindanao, while the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said Abu Sayyaf extremists were the culprits.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief, said members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf carried out the attacks to avenge the recent deaths of many of their fighters in the southern provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

“These (bomb) attacks have something to do with the incidents in Sulu where some Abu Sayyaf leaders were recently killed by government troops. The group wants to avenge their deaths,” Jaafar said from his hideout in Maguindanao province.

Wednesday’s succession of blasts killed seven people and wounded at least 40 others in cities of General Santos, Kidapawan and Cotabato.

Chief Superintendent German Doria, the regional police director, said investigators could not yet say whether the attacks were coordinated and whether terrorists were behind them.

The Cotabato attack, the second in a span of five days, cost the city’s police chief, Senior Superintendent Peraco Macacua, his post. Macacua was replaced yesterday by Senior Superintendent Panares Adap, police officer Mary Culanag said.

“There is an order from the regional police office and we have a new chief,” she told the Arab News by phone.

One person died and six were injured in the Cotabato bombing on Wednesday night. Investigators said most of the victims were scavengers. The bomb made out of an 81 mm mortar waas placed near a garbage pit in the downtown area.

The other victims in Wednesday’s blasts included six killed and at least 33 injured in General Santos.

City police chief Senior Superintendent Alfredo Toroctocon quoted witnesses as saying said the bomb exploded at 6.45 p.m near a lottery outlet.

Another blast hit Kidapawan at around 8.45 p.m. and wounded two people.

Chief Superintendent Doria yesterday said an artist sketch of a suspect, who left a backpack near the lotto outlet here, had been produced based on an account by an injured female witness.

Renegades

While the MILF pointed to the Abu Sayyaf for the blasts, Cotabato Mayor Muslimin Sema, who is a former Moro rebel, pointed to renegade members of the MILF allied with the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah.

The MILF has denied the claim.

Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, said the rebel group would work with authorities to uncover the identities of those behind the attacks.

Classes in public elementary schools were suspended in Cotabato yesterday to give lawmen and village officials enough time to sanitize this city of concealed explosives.

In Kidapawan, police released the identities of the six injured in Wednesday’s blast: Tarcela Reyes, 27, single, a barbeque attendant; Kimwel Agad Sures, 25, single, a beautician; Mauricio Handugan Gatan, 52, married, jobless; Jesus Grayda, 30, married, also a barbeque attendant; Wilfredo Balili, 49, married and a tricycle driver; and Mark Cedeño Rivas, 14, a student, who remained in critical condition at a hospital.

Embarrassing

The chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines said that while the triple bomb attacks were far from Cebu, site of this year’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia summits, they were a source of embarrassment for the government. “I am embarrassed by it (bombings),” Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. told reporters in Malacañang after attending a roundtable discussion with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

In a separate interview, special envoy on Counter-terrorism Benjamin Defensor said the bombers wanted to embarrass the government and get attention.

“Obviously, they are trying to get attention and they are going to hit an area where law enforcers are not looking,” he said.

ASEAN Summit

In Manila, the military announced that it had placed the entire Mindanao region under the highest terror alert due to the possibility of more attacks.

However, the terror alert in Metro Manila and in Cebu province, the venue of the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, remains “moderate,” meaning that threat groups do not have the capability to stage attacks.

“We are very, very confident that with the security placements we have there right now, nothing will happen to Cebu,” said military spokesperson Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro.

“Definitely, Cebu is safe,” he added.

The military went on red alert nationwide Wednesday morning, the start of the weeklong ASEAN summit, in anticipation of terrorist attacks being staged elsewhere.

“We believe any threat group who intend to disrupt or cause any terror acts aimed at the ASEAN summit will not be able to get inside Cebu,” Bacarro said.

Security forces recently adopted a four-step terror warning system — low, moderate, high and extreme. The highest is “extreme critical,” which means an attack has been made and there’s a possibility of follow-up attacks, Bacarro said.

While investigators have offered possible motives for the series of bombings in Mindanao, Bacarro said they could not yet link the explosions to the ASEAN summit.

“If (the attacks) were aimed at the ASEAN summit, it would have been conducted in the vicinity,” he said.