Police still clueless on Sulu bombing

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Police were still clueless on the roadside bombing targeted at Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan that left 11 people, including a municipal mayor, wounded the other day.

Chief Superintendent Bensali Jabarani, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), however, said probers were pursuing several angles and were not ruling out the possible involvement of the Abu Sayyaf in the bombing.

Jabarani noted that a similar “motorcycle bomb” was also used in the bombing at the Batasan Pambansa complex in Quezon City in 2008.

The Abu Sayyaf, he added, also used the same type of bomb in an attack in an eatery outside a training camp in Barangay Malagutay in 2002 where a US Special Forces member and two civilians were killed on the spot.

Tan survived the attack unharmed, but eight of his escorts – five policemen and three soldiers – as well as a town mayor and two civilians were wounded.

“At the moment we cannot single out the Abu Sayyaf yet but we cannot also rule out their possible hand in the attack,” Jabarani said, citing Tan’s campaign against the Abu Sayyaf.

Tan has declared a state of emergency in Sulu to pave the way for a crackdown on the bandits who are still holding Italian Red Cross volunteer Eugenio Vagni hostage.