ISULAN, Sultan Kudarat (MindaNews /02 September) — Five days after an improvised bomb killed three persons and injured 30 others along the highway in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat province, another bomb exploded Sunday night in an internet cafe in the same town, leaving one teenager dead and 15 others injured, four of them in critical condition, according to Isulan Mayor Marites Pallasigue.
“We exhausted our very best to secure the place amidst security threats but still it happened,” she told this reporter Sunday night.
Pallasigue said that when she asked the security sector after the August 28 blast, she was told, “it could be a test mission.”
The bomb exploded in an internet cafe adjacent to the Novo Department Store in Barangay Kalawag 2.
Captain Arvin Encinas, spokesperson of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division, said combined troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) “have locked up Isulan, conducted zoning (operations) to apprehned the perpetrators, and the rest are clearing the explosion area.”
Encinas blamed the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) for the August 28 and September 2 bombing.
“This group has the fondest desire to initiate these types of attack to make an impression before the ISIS,” he said.
Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, 6ID commander referred to the BIFF as “peaee spoilers.”
Sobejana, who acknowledged that the “test mission of the BIFF” is a possibility, said there is a need to strengthen community information links to thwart attempts similar to these bombings.
Abu Misry Mama, BIFF spokesperson, denied responsibility for both bombings.
On August 28, an improvised bomb exploded along the national highway in Isulan, at around 8:34 p.m., just as a military truck passed by.
The town was celebrating last week its 7th Hamungaya Festival and 61st anniversary.
Encinas said the bomb, placed near a parked motorcycle, exploded in front of the J and H Marketing along the national highway in Barangay Kalawag 3, near the “ukay-ukay” area (stalls selling second hand items). (Ferdinandh L. Cabrera / MindaNews)
