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March bomb kills 17 { March 4 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/04/international/asia/04CND-FILI.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/04/international/asia/04CND-FILI.html
March 4, 2003
Bombing in the Philippines Kills at Least 17
By CARLOS H. CONDE
MANILA, March 4 Ñ At least 17 people were killed and more than a hundred were wounded today when a bomb exploded just outside an airport in the city of Davao in the southern Philippines, a region that has been the center of a Muslim insurgency.
About an hour after the airport bombing, a grenade exploded in the city of Tagum about an hour's drive to the south, killing one person and injuring three.
The police said a bomb exploded at the arrival terminal just outside the Davao International Airport, where people were waiting for passengers or sending off friends and relatives.
The police have confirmed the death of at least 17 people and the wounding of 161 others. A spokesman at the United States Embassy said that at least one American was among the dead and three other Americans were wounded. It was not immediately clear if the Americans were tourists or were expatriates working in the Philippines.
The number of casualties was expected to climb, according to the police in Davao City, 608 miles south of Manila. It is the largest city in Mindanao and the largest city in the Philippines after Manila.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's office said she "strongly condemns the Davao bombing as a brazen act of terrorism which will not go unpunished."
She called an emergency meeting of the cabinet oversight committee, which discusses internal security issues, for this evening, the committee said in a statement.
The violence came amid heightened security against attacks in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country, where government forces are fighting four rebel groups seeking an Islamic state.
The bombings were the latest in a series of attacks in Mindanao.
Two weeks ago a car bomb exploded outside the airport terminal in Cotabato City, about 570 miles south of Manila. Last week electric towers were bombed, causing blackouts in most of Mindanao.
Military officials said those attacks were committed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Muslim separatist group, in retaliation for the government's offensive against the front's positions in early February. More than 200 rebels died in the offensive, the military said. The front has denied that it was involved in the attacks.
No one has claimed responsibility for today's bombings or for the attacks in the past few days. It is also not clear whether the attacks were related.
The military said the Islamic liberation front and the communist New People's Army were possible suspects.
Hermogenes Ebdane, the chief of the Philippine police, has declared a nationwide alert and ordered the police to implement stricter security measures.
A few hours before the attack, President Arroyo had ordered the police and the military to improve security in Mindanao after the attacks on the power facilities.
United States Special Forces are now on Mindanao, training Philippine units in counter-terrorism tactics in and around the city of Zamboanga, 220 miles west of Davao.
Mindanao is home to a 25-year-old Muslim insurgency. It is also where a group of extremists, the Abu Sayyaf, operate. The group has kidnapped, murdered and raped Filipinos and foreigners and is on Washington's list of foreign terrorist organizations.
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