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| Sunday, 20 October 2002 |
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Manila officials meet as bombings spark public fear MANILA, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The Philippine government, shaken by a series of bombings across the country in the past three days, was meeting with Manila local authorities on Saturday. Witnesses said members of the cabinet were holding closed-door talks with Manila mayors and police officers at the Presidential palace. No further details of the meeting were immediately available. In the latest bombing incident, a device exploded on a bus in the Philippine capital of Manila late on Friday night, killing three passengers and wounding around 22 others. No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred a day after suspected Islamic radicals bombed the main bazaar in the city of Zamboanga in the south, killing seven people and injuring more than 160. National Security Advisor Roilo Golez said late on Friday the government would step up security around high-impact targets in the country but gave no further details. "We have identified some high impact targets and we're instituting measures to harden them," he told the local media. Security in the country has already been increased since last Saturday when a bomb attack in neighbouring Indonesia killed more than 180 people. Nerves across the country have been stretched taut in the wake of the series of bombings. In Manila early on Friday there was panic when a grenade exploded in the Makati financial district. No one was injured. Later a bomb scare prompted the evacuation of a high-rise office building. Text messages, the most popular form of communication in the country, have been warning the public of further attacks in shopping malls in Manila, but Golez branded the messages as disinformation. Speaking on local radio on Saturday he urged the public to be alert but to go about their normal activities. "You should continue going to the malls, though just be more alert. Continue to live life normally." In the southern Philippines, security forces have launched a manhunt for four suspects in Thursday's bomb attack in Zamboanga, the heartland of a Muslim insurgency. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who visited the area on Friday morning, told reporters that troops and police had identified the suspects and were looking for them. She refused to say whether they were Muslim radicals, but the military commander of the region said the attack bore the hallmarks of the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, a group linked to the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. |
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