A motorcycle laden with explosives went off late Tuesday in downtown Isulan in the southern Filipino province of Sultan Kudarat and wounded nearly three dozen people in the daring attack while the whole region is under martial rule, reports said.
The motorcycle was parked along the highway near several shops in Kalawag village when it exploded around 8.30 p.m The wounded were rushed to hospitals and it was not immediately known if there were people who died from the bombing.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the attack, but previous bombings in civilian areas in the restive region had been largely blamed to pro-ISIS militants fighting for the establishment of a caliphate on Mindanao.
Security forces have been fighting several militant groups in the southern region. The blast occurred following President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to the armed forces to crush terrorism.
Just last month, a Moroccan ISIS soldier Abu Katheer al Maghribi, exploded his van filled with explosives in Lamitan City in the volatile Muslim province of Basilan, several nautical miles south of Zamboanga. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the July 31 suicide attack that left over a dozen casualties.
In a post on its Amaq News Agency, the Islamic State said a Moroccan man carried out the daring assault against Filipino soldiers and identified the executor of the suicide bombing as Abu Katheer al Maghribi. “A martyrdom attack leads to 15 Filipino soldiers being killed in the city of Lamitan on the island of Basilan in the southern Philippines,” it said.
Philippine authorities said 12 people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a security checkpoint after government militias stopped the suspicious vehicle in Bulanting village, about 2 kilometers away from downtown Lamitan.
The powerful explosion obliterated the vehicle and left a huge crater and among those killed were a woman and a child; and the militia commander whose unit is under the supervision of the Philippine Army. Five soldiers and several civilians were also wounded in the explosion.
Reports said the bomber came from a nearby town and heading to downtown Lamitan when his vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint.
The military tried to downplay the explosion, saying, there was no proof that it was a suicide attack and insisted a local Abu Sayyaf fighter was behind it and the motive of the bombing was extortion – despite several witnesses reports claiming witnesses had seen the bomber before he detonated his van. Lamitan Vice Mayor Roderick Furigay, quoting a report by witnesses, also said that the driver appeared to be a foreigner and could not speak the local dialect when stopped by soldiers at the army checkpoint.
Two weeks later after the bombing, Defense Chief Delfin Lorenzana said the attack was believed carried out by the Moroccan militant. “We’ll did he die, we don’t know. Maybe he is that guy. Meron pang agam-agam kung siya talaga ‘yun e. Pero sa akin mukhang qualifications point that he is the guy,” CNN Philippine quoted Lorenzana as saying in an interview.
Lorenzana said the bomber blew up his van loaded with explosives at the checkpoint to evade capture, adding, the militant was targeting a gathering of students in Lamitan. “Wala na siyang magawa eh, mahuhuli na siya eh. So sabi niya, suicide na lang siya, but he would not, he was not, that was not the intention,” he said.
The province is also a known stronghold of the militant group Abu Sayyaf whose leaders have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Several foreign fighters had been killed in clashes with soldiers in Basilan in recent years. The military urged the public to be on alert and stay vigilant at all times following attempts by pro-ISIS militants to bomb civilian targets in the restive southern region.
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