There is still uncertainty on whe-ther the rider of the motorcycle, who was killed instantaneously in the blast, was a suicide bomber. There was speculation that Filipino deportees from Sabah, most of whom have settled in Zamboanga, have been infiltrated by al-Qaeda operatives. By yesterday afternoon the chief of the Philippine National Police was pinning the blame for the bombing on the Abu Sayyaf, which reportedly sent out a four-man urban terrorist squad to carry out the attack. The US Embassy also called the bombing a terrorist attack and condemned it even as the wounded American commando was airlifted out of Zamboanga City.
It has been just two months since the joint military exercises between Philippine and American troops ended in Basilan. The island province has been free of Abu Sayyaf depredations since the exercises started in February, but a faction of the terrorist group struck in Sulu just weeks after the war games ended, kidnapping Jehovah’s Witnesses and beheading two of the victims. Before the war exercises, the Abu Sayyaf had been preoccupied with money-making activities parti-cularly kidnapping for ransom and extortion. If the group is indeed responsible for the latest bombing, it indicates a return to the group’s fundamentalist beginnings, when its main motivation was not money but religious zealotry. That was the Abu Sayyaf at its deadliest, and the government must do everything to prevent this group from resurfacing and regaining strength.