Homemade bomb found in front of radio station

COTABATO CITY — Bomb experts safely defused at dawn yesterday a powerful homemade bomb planted by still unidentified persons in front of a radio station along a busy street here.

Maj. Miguelito Reyes, commanding officer of the 6th Explosives and Ordnance Disposal Detachment here, said the bomb, fashioned from a live round of an 81 mm mortar and a 40 mm grenade projectile, could have been left along Sinsuat Avenue just after midnight.

"It was just fortunate that local residents near (radio station dxMY) immediately notified the military and the police after they saw the explosive," Reyes said.

Reyes and his aides succeeded in dismantling the bomb, rigged with a digital clock and a battery-operated circuit.

They found at the scene about a dozen folders, addressed to various media outfits, containing appeals for the government to create a federal state for Mindanao’s Muslim and indigenous communities.

Brig. Gen. Roy Kyamko, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said their intelligence units were gathering information on who were behind the failed bombing attempt.

"Our initial theory is that this could have been planted by a radical pro-independence group in Central Mindanao," he said.

Kyamko cited the city folk’s vigilance and their support for President Arroyo’s peace initiatives in the South for their prompt response to recent attempts by lawless groups to disturb the fragile peace in Central Mindanao.

Last week, religious leaders identified with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front pledged to the 6th ID their continued help to the peace process.

They made the pledge in the presence of Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman and Zamzamin Ampatuan of the Southern Philippines Development Authority.

Yesterday’s failed attempt to bomb a strategic spot here came less than 12 hours after members of the 6th ID gunned down a foreign-trained bomb expert of the "Pentagon" kidnap-for-ransom gang in a brief encounter at the boundary of Barangays Lumoyon and Mayo in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat.

The slain Pentagon member, initially identified as one Commander Tawasil, and his companions were reportedly on their way to Tacurong City to collect "protection money" from local merchants.