3 hurt in Tacurong City blast

From the Philippine Star (Dec 27): 3 hurt in Tacurong City blast

Three residents were injured in a blast that ripped through a busy intersection in Tacurong City Wednesday night, just hours after a grenade explosion rocked a residential area here, leaving a villager wounded. The improvised explosive device planted near an outlet of a roadside money transfer and remittance establishment at the city proper of Tacurong went off just as Army bomb disposal operatives were trying to defuse an IED found near a police precinct at the Rosary Heights area here. Supt. Junny Buenacosa, chief of the Tacurong City police, said the blast victims, Christian Cabangon, 36; James Salinda, 26; and Jessa Marcelo, 23, who sustained shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies, were rushed to a hospital for medication. The victims were near the spot where the IED was set off by unidentified bombers, according to Buenacosa.

Investigators are still clueless on the identities of the bombers and the motive for the attack. Tacurong City has repeatedly been rocked by bomb attacks in recent months, some blamed on extortionists reportedly trying to scare local traders and force them into shelling out “protection money”. Buenacosa said he has deployed more policemen in various areas in Tacurong City to forestall a repeat of the incident. The IED explosion came just hours after an unidentified man hurled a fragmentation grenade along the supposedly busy Don E. Sero Street here, slightly wounding an occupant, Gani Uy, a former barangay councilor.

The grenade explosion preceded the deactivation by an Army explosives disposal team of an IED found near a police precinct near the Rosary Heights area here. The IED was defused using a controlled liquid disruptor explosive to destroy its blasting mechanism.

The spot where the IED was found is not far from where gunmen ambushed a Toyota van Wednesday morning, killing two passengers and wounding six others, among them Amil Sula, who is chairman of Barangay Rosary Heights 5 here. Sula is now undergoing medication at a local hospital. The ambushers, armed with assault rifles, scampered away riding motorcycles after they opened fire at the vehicle carrying the victims. The scene is only a block away from the Rosary Heights police precinct. Investigators have yet to get a lead on the identities of the gunmen.

http://www.philstar.com/2012/12/27/890567/3-hurt-tacurong-city-blast