Troops foil bomb attacks in Maguindanao

Rappler.com

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(UPDATED) The breakaway Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement is suspected of plotting attacks in Maguindanao, but the group is denying it

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (UPDATED) – The military said it foiled on Friday, January 4, a terror attack believed orchestrated by suspected members of a breakaway rebel group in Maguindanao.

Regional military spokesman Col Prudencio Asto said soldiers have recovered and defused powerful two homemade bombs each fashioned from 81-milimiter mortar shell in front of the main entrance of municipal hall of Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao.

Asto said the explosives were attached to a mobile phone as triggering device.

“We suspect their targets were our troops conducting foot patrol in the area,” the military official said, referring to Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, a group that broke away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF has signed an initial peace agreement with the government that sets the stage for the creation of the Bangsamoro region.

But the BIFM denied they were behind the foiled attacks.

Abu Misry Mama, spokesman of the BIFM, said none of the BIFM members were involved in the attempt to detonate an improvised explosive device outside the municipal hall of Shariff Aguak.

“The military is the one responsible in the bombings in Mindanao.  They are the terrorist,” Mama said.

On December 29, at least 15 people were wounded when a bomb went off inside a passenger bus in the town of Isulan in Sultan Kudarat.

A day before that attack, two civilians were also wounded in bomb explosion in the city of Tacurong. – with reports from Karlos Manlupig/Rappler.com

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