2ND ATTACK IN 6 DAYS: Rebs fire mortar at Cotabato radio station

COTABATO CITY — Suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels fired an 81mm mortar on a relay base here of the city’s leading Catholic radio station yesterday at dawn, leaving one radio technician seriousy wounded.

The mortar attack was the second assault on the DXMS radio station in six days.

Col. Tereso Badayos, commander of the 2nd Marine Battalion, said the bomb attack damaged a makeshift warehouse which served as a storage room of DXMS, a station owned by the Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp.

Badayos said the attack was believed to be aimed at the 370-foot-high transmission tower of the DXMS which was about 10 meters away from the warehouse.

Wounded in the blast was Eric Tanod-tanod, a radio technician. He was rushed to the Cotabato Medical Center for treatment of shrapnel wounds.

The blast was so strong that metal fragments of the mortar projectile perforated the walls of the station’s staff house, where Tanod-tanod was sleeping.

Investigators said the mortar could have been fired from the Pagalamatan district here, a known entry and escape route of suspected criminals.

The mortar attack came just six days after armed men fired a rocket grenade at the station, leaving four bystanders wounded. Just 10 minutes after the explosion, bomb experts recovered a dud fragmentation grenade on the roof of the station’s garage believed hurled by motorcycle-riding men from the nearby busy thoroughfare.

Employees of DXMS said that before yesterday’s attack, one of their technicians, Dennis Pido, received a telephone call from an anonymous caller warning them of a bomb attack if they would continue airing the nightly program Radio Kalimudan, which is extremely critical of the MILF.

Eid Kabalu, MILF’s spokesman, was quick to deny the reported involvement of his group in the attack, emphasizing that the MILF has been very tolerant of criticism.

"That was not the handiwork of the MILF," Kabalu said.

Radio Kalimudan, hosted by popular religious commentator Datu Zamzamin Ampatuan, has been criticizing the MILF for resorting to violence and brigandage in pushing for the formation for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao.

Ampatuan, an engineer by profession, said Radio Kalimudan is merely aimed at teaching the Muslims in Central Mindanao to preserve their unique cultural and religious practices which have been handed to them from generation to generation. — With Roel Pareño