Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Extensive probe on Lamitan City gas station bombing sought

 Posted to the Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation (NDBC) (Jun 19, 2024): Extensive probe on Lamitan City gas station bombing sought (By John Felix Unson)



A passerby was slightly hurt in Tuesday night's bombing of a fuel retail station in Lamitan City. (PIO-Basilan)


COTABATO CITY - Residents urged for a deep probe on Tuesday night’s bombing of a fuel station in Lamitan City, convinced it was not a terror attack, but meant to embarrass the officials who declared all of its 45 barangays as Abu Sayyaf-free earlier the same day.

Gov. Hadjiman Salliman, chairperson of the Basilan Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC), officials of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade and the Basilan Provincial Police Office declared Lamitan City on Tuesday morning as cleared from presence of the Abu Sayyaf as a result of the cross-section peacebuilding initiatives.

“I condemn that atrocity in strongest terms,” Salliman told reporters in Cotabato City and other areas in the Bangsamoro region via text message after the incident.

A passerby was slightly hurt in the bombing of the gasoline station in Barangay Matibay, according to officials of the Lamitan City Police Station and the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade.

Besides Lamitan City, officials of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade, the provincial police, municipal and provincial officials led by Salliman also declared last June 4 as Abu Sayyaf-free the municipality of Lantawan, the scene of deadly clashes between terrorists and soldiers many years before.

Police Lt. Col. Arlan Delumpines, Lamitan City police chief, said on Wednesday that they are not discounting the possibility that plain extortionists, not Abu Sayyaf terrorists, were behind the bombing.

Several traders in Basilan, covering 11 towns and two cities, Lamitan and Isabela, had reportedly received letters from anonymous senders demanding protection money, warning of attacks if they refuse to cooperate.

Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, on Wednesday, ordered police officials in Lamitan City to investigate extensively assertions that the fuel station bombing was a ploy to discredit the local executives, the police and military officials who, together, declared the city and Lantawan town, about 50 kilometers away, as cleared from presence of the Abu Sayyaf.

Records from PRO-BAR and the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City indicate that more than 400 members of the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan have surrendered in batches since 2015 through the intercession of Salliman, Basilan Rep. Mujiv Hataman, different Army and police units and the League of Mayors in the province, all of them reintroduced to mainstream society, now thriving peacefully as farmers and fishermen.

https://www.ndbcnews.com.ph/news/extensive-probe-lamitan-city-gas-station-bombing-sought

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