ILIGAN CITY — Two children found a mortar hidden inside a papaya fruit attached to an explosive device with a timer and a blasting cap in a garbage dump in Iligan City yesterday.
Iligan City police director Superintendent Celso Regencia said the two scavengers immediately reported their discovery to police and military personnel, who defused the bomb in a vacant lot on Burgos and Echiverri streets.
The mortar was different from the type issued to the Armed Forces, he added.
Last Friday, a mortar also concealed in a papaya was found by a store assistant in a bakeshop on Aguinaldo Street in Iligan City.
It was on Aguinaldo Street that two cell phone-activated mortars exploded one after the other in two department stores Thursday last week.
Three people were killed and 47 others were wounded in those two terrorist attacks.
Police have identified two suspects in the bombing of UniCity and Jerry’s Bargain Center department stores.
Chief Inspector Arnel Catarata of the police intelligence division said a witness has pointed to two men who spoke with a Maranao accent as the ones who deposited a box wrapped as a Christmas package at the baggage counter in Jerry’s Bargain Center minutes before the explosion.
A sketch of the two suspects will be available soon, he added.
Meanwhile, local radios stations have reported that most Christmas parties in Iligan City have been cancelled as a precautionary measure.
Attendance in the traditional “Simbang Gabi” has also dwindled even as police threw a tight security cordon around St. Michael’s Cathedral and other Catholic churches and chapels around the city.
Rogue MILF linked to Iligan bombing
Philippine National Police chief Director General Jesus Verzosa linked yesterday rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front commanders Ameril Umbra Kato, Abdulrahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo and Aleem Sulayman Pangalian to the terrorist bombing of UniCity and Jerry’s Bargain Center department stores in Iligan City.
“We have established some links with some personalities of the renegade terrorist groups, especially the ones that are identified with Kato,” he said.
“Still the more important thing is to account for the three most wanted renegades Kato, Bravo, and Pangalian.”
Meanwhile, Verzosa said there was no specific terror threat, particularly in Metro Manila on Christmas Day to New Year’s Day.
“There’s no really significant worry, especially in Metro Manila,” he said.
“We have not lifted the heightened alert status here. We hope that all the public in Metro Manila will enjoy the Christmas season.
“What we can promise is that we will be deploying our troops more in the areas that we are needed, especially in the commercial areas.”
Verzosa said there is no direct evidence of plans to sow terrorism in other parts of the country.
“But we are noting what happened in Iligan because some areas in Mindanao are really hot areas that have been targets before of terrorist operations,” he said.
Police are assessing the pattern of attacks and signature of the bombs used in the terrorist attacks in Iligan City, Verzosa said. — With James Mananghaya, Cecille Suerte Felipe