MANILA - Security forces
across the Philippines were on full alert on Monday as
police probed a bomb attack on a public market in the
southern port city of General Santos on Sunday that
killed at least 14 people and wounded 59 others,
officials said.
According to
the military, unidentified men lobbed the explosive near a
restaurant at the South Public Market in the city of
General Santos, about 1,000 kilometers south of Manila.
Three people were killed on the spot, while other
fatalities have been reported by two local hospitals.
Military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Buenaventura Pascual told
reporters that the armed forces had been on full alert
since Sunday night.
Police and
military authorities have downplayed speculation that the
bombing was politically motivated, with police sources
saying they are looking into a feud between two families
with ties to separatist group the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) as a possible motive.
With a
population of half a million people, General Santos is
one of the biggest cities on the southern island of
Mindanao, which has been troubled by decades of Muslim
separatist rebellion and Islamic militants. Along with
insurgents, criminal gangs also operate in the volatile
southern Philippines, where bombings are sometimes
linked to family or clan feuds.
President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo called the blast a "heinous deed" and
"hopes the perpetrators will be brought to justice at
the soonest possible time", her spokesman, Ignacio Bunye,
was reported to have told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
No group had claimed responsibility for
the blast as of Monday, however, and officials said it
was not clear whether a terrorist group was involved. "As of this
time, Task Force GenSan [General Santos] has no suspects
yet and motives. No group has accepted responsibility
for the bombing," Pascual said. Troops have been
deployed around vital installations in General Santos to
prevent similar attacks, he said.
Many reports claim that the bombing probably stemmed from
a local dispute over ownership of stalls at the
marketplace.
Last week rumors had been flying in General Santos
that violence might be about to take place
there because of the feud.
Yet
Colonel Medardo Geslani, who heads an army
anti-terrorism force in the region, told the New York
Times he considered the bombing a terrorist act and a
reminder of the constant vigilance needed to thwart such
attacks, even after long spells of relative peace.
General Santos
had been largely tranquil since 2002 when 14 people were
killed in a shopping mall explosion later blamed on
the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf and MILF,
a guerrilla movement campaigning for independence for
the Muslim minority in the south of the Philippines, a
predominantly Christian country.
National
police chief
Edgardo Aglipay backed up claims that this latest blast could be
linked to a "recent quarrel" between a Muslim group and
Christians for rental space at the city's meat market,
which was devastated by the blast. "Of course, we are
not discounting other groups," Aglipay, who flew to
General Santos early on Monday to supervise the probe,
told AFP.
Police and military units
across the Philippines were put on full alert after the
bombing. The alert canceled all scheduled leave and put
the forces on 24-hour standby for deployment.
"There's a terrorist threat across the whole of
Mindanao," AFP reported Aglipay as saying. "[Terrorists]
have the luxury of time and space," he said, explaining
the full alert.
Earlier reports hinted at
alleged plans to conduct bombing activities in some
cities, causing both the military and police in those
areas to take precautionary measures. "I already
declared a red alert up to the first week of January,"
Aglipay said in a television interview.
The full-alert status was activated as a
precaution "in anticipation of any contingency situation that
may arise as a result of such bombing", military
spokesman Brigadier-General Alexander Yano told AFP, while
stressing there had been no specific threats.
The government is seeking to start peace
talks with the MILF after signing a ceasefire with
the 12,000-member guerrilla force two years ago.
However, MILF officials have so far failed to show up at
the negotiating table amid an apparent power
struggle after the death last year of its leader Salamat
Hashim, who founded the movement in 1978.
Manila and its Western allies have expressed concern that
some of its hardline factions have been giving sanctuary
and training facilities to foreign fighters of Jemaah
Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked cell of Southeast Asia
militants blamed for the Bali bombings that claimed 202
lives in Indonesia in 2002.
