PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 21, 2013) – At least 9 people were wounded in a bomb explosion on Monday in the southern Philippines, army officials said.
Officials said the blast occurred at around 10.35 a.m. near a row of department stores along Quezon Avenue in Iliogan City.
“An IED explosion occurred along Quezon (Avenue) which resulted to nine persons injured and they were all rushed to the nearest hospital for medical treatment,” Brig. Gen. Daniel Lucero, commander of 103rd Infantry Brigade, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the latest attack which came bare a month after lodging house was also bombed in Iligan City.
“We still don’t know the motive of the attack or who was behind it, but authorities have begun investigating this bombing,” Lucero said.
In May 2011, a similar bombing killed at least 3 people and wounded over two dozen civilians.
It was not immediately known whether the bombing was connected to terrorism or extortion by criminal or rebel groups, but it occurred ahead of political campaigns for the May elections.
The attack was carried out despite heightened security in the restive southern region where several rebel groups and members of the Indonesian terror organization Jemaah Islamiya are actively operating. (Mindanao Examiner)
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