9 hurt in Cotabato City blast

COTABATO CITY — Police believe that a gang of extortionists detonated the bomb that exploded in a bakery here Tuesday night, injuring a bakery employee and five bystanders.

No arrests were made immediately.

Hidden in a plastic bag, the bomb was left at the entrance of "Inok’s Bakery" by an unidentified man who then hurried off.

Police said extortion was the motive for the blast as the bakery had received threats from unidentified people demanding about P100,000 a month in payoffs. Police have blamed three notorious extortion gangs for the bombing: the Dragon Group, Urban Lions Squad and the Sea Gull Gang, all identified with the Pentagon kidnap syndicate.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, chairman of the city peace and order council, said the home-made bomb was fashioned from a still undetermined blasting chemical mixed with nails, and rigged with a time-delayed triggering mechanism.

"The (extortion) letters warned to harm the owner of the establishment and sabotage his business if he would ignore the instructions for him to shell out protection money," he said.

Minutes before the explosion, witnesses saw two men leaving a box at the doorstep of one of two adjoining business stalls, meters away from the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. The cathedral was closed at the time. Its fence was pocked with minor damage. The bombing occurred on the second day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.

Cotabato City police commander Superintendent Ajijul Taradji said investigations show that extortionists were behind the bombing.

"We are not discounting the possibility of terrorist attacks in the city," he said. "All we need now is vigilance for us to stop terrorists from carrying out attacks in our communities."

Taradji said the wounded suffered only superficial wounds. "Almost all of them were discharged from the hospital just hours after they were treated of their shrapnelwounds," he said. — With AP, AFP