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Bomb Defused Near US Embassy in Philippines

Bomb Defused Near US Embassy in Philippines
folder_openAsia-Pacific... access_time7 years ago
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Local Editor

Philippine police defused a bomb found in a rubbish bin near the US embassy in Manila Monday, authorities said, with officials blaming extremist for what they called an attempted terrorist act.

Bomb Defused Near US Embassy in Philippines

An improvised explosive device composed of a cellphone, blasting cap, nine-volt battery and 81-millimeter mortar bomb was found by a street sweeper about 200 meters from the embassy, according to Manila police.

National police chief Ronald dela Rosa said extremist militants in the southern Philippines who have pledged allegiance to Daesh [ISIS/ISIL] were probably behind the incident.

"This is an attempted act of terrorism," Dela Rosa told a news briefing.

"Because of an ongoing police/military operation there, [the militants] have many casualties. We can theorize that this is a diversion to loosen our operations," he added.

The military began an operation last Thursday against the Maute group, which staged a deadly bombing in President Rodrigo Duterte's home town in the southern city of Davao that killed 15 people in September.

The militants are holed up in an abandoned government building in the mainly Muslim rural town of Butig on Mindanao Island. Troops have been firing artillery to flush them out.

Dela Rosa said he believed the Maute gang or the Ansar Khilafa Philippines, another southern-based group sympathetic to Daesh, left the bomb near the US embassy.

Police said the bomb was left early Monday by a taxi passenger, who stopped and threw the device into a trash bin. A street sweeper later found the package and reported it to police, officials added.

The bomb could have caused injury or damage within a 100-metre radius, police said.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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