Sunday, October 21, 2007
Manila Explosion Ruled Terrorist Bombing
From AFP:
Military explosives were used in a huge bomb blast at a Manila shopping mall that left nine dead and 113 injured, Philippine police said Saturday.
Evidence collected from Friday's Glorietta mall blast indicates that the bomb "contained RDX, the main chemical component of C4," the police said in a report to Philippines President Gloria Arroyo.
In the Philippines C4 explosive is only used by the military.
The report was delivered at a top-level security meeting between the president and her security advisers at police headquarters in Manila.
[...]
Senior Superintendent Bert Ferro, who heads the police bomb data centre, said samples taken from the site leads him to "presume that those are of military ordnance components."
A chemist from the centre told Arroyo that it was possible that more samples were being collected from the site, but "at this point in time, that is what we have."
The military yesterday said the bomb attack on the country’s premier financial district was a “terrorist act” regardless of who carried it out.
[...]
“It’s a terror attack no doubt, but not RSM (Rajah Solaiman Movement ) or any al-Qaida-linked group.”
The officer, a counterterrorism expert, asked not to be identified, saying he is involved in the probe of the bombing and does not want the investigation jeopardized.
The president's security adviser Norberto Gonzales said the Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf has been trying to raise international support over the internet.
"What is more ominous here is they may be planning a bigger attack," he said on Philippines radio.
Militants have targeted the Philippines capital in the past.
In 2004, more than 100 people died when militants from Abu Sayyaf - who are battling the military in the south of the country - blew up a passenger ferry in the capital.
And in February 2005, four people died in a bomb attack on a Manila bus.
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