2 vendors injured in Cotabato City explosion

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  – An explosion ripped through a residential area here Thursday night, slightly wounding two vendors in a roadside flea market near the scene of the explosion.

Investigators said the improvised explosive went off just meters away from the house of Telesforo Cisneros, chairman of Barangay Rosary Heights here.

Investigators said no one saw who planted the bomb at the concrete wall of Cisneros’ residential compound.

Two vendors tending makeshift stalls near Cis-neros’ house sustained superficial wounds in the explosion and both went home after receiving first aid.

Cisneros said he is clueless on the real motive behind the bombing, adding that he has no known enemies that would attempt to kill or scare him.

The bomb was fashioned from live mortar projectiles rigged with a battery-operated blasting mechanism attached to a mobile phone.

The bombing near Cis-neros’ house was the fifth in his barangay in the past three months.

The incident was preceded by the prompt deactivation by local Army ordnance operatives of two 60-mm mortar rounds found along a diversion road near the public cemetery here not far from the Rosary Heights police precinct.

Police still have no solid clues on who could have left the two mortar projectiles along the road.