Bomb attack foiled

COTABATO CITY – Lawmen defused the other day three home-made bombs, fashioned from live 81 mm mortar rounds rigged with improvised blasting devices, planted by suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels in a hospital in Aleosan, North Cotabato.

Sources from the police and the Army’s intelligence units here said the foiled bomb attack could have been perpetrated in retaliation for the arrest by policemen early this week of an MILF bomb expert in nearby Midsayap town.

Major Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Divison, said the bombs were left at different spots in the Aleosan District Hospital.

Ando said the attempt to bomb the hospital came less than a week after police operatives in Midsayap nabbed Sahid Solon, an explosives expert tagged responsible for four recent bomb attacks in the area.

Solon, a member of an MILF special operations group, was arrested while suspiciously roaming around the Midsayap public market, apparently looking for a spot where he could plant an improvised explosive. – John Unson