3 killed in separate attacks in Cotabato

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Three were killed while another was wounded in a grenade explosion in separate incidents here from Wednesday until late Thursday.

Driver Albert Pacho, 47, sustained shrapnel wounds when a grenade, hurled by one of two men riding a motorcycle together, went off Thursday night at the park area of the Sugarpapi Coffee Shop along the busy Sinsuat Avenue.

Pacho, driver of a white Toyota Fortuner bearing license plates LFU 494, was waiting for his employer whiling away time inside the establishment when the bombers attacked.

Responding policemen recovered from the scene fragments of an MK 27 grenade the suspects blasted outside of the coffee shop, owned by a local Chinese entrepreneur.

Military and police probers are still trying to determine the identities of the bombers and their real motive for the attack.

The incident was preceded by Wednesday’s separate shooting incidents here that left three dead.

Only one of the three fatalities, a certain Raul Bacero, 50, has been identified so far.

Bacero was shot dead by a suspect armed with a handgun while at a residential area along Quezon Avenue here.

Two unidentified men were killed one after another by gunmen armed with pistols hours later at Barangay Poblacion Mother.

An employee of the Commission on Audit in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was shot and wounded Wednesday night at Barangay Rosary Heights, also in Cotabato City.

The victim, Ismael Mudi Ulama, who sustained a gunshot wound in the head, is now confined at a local hospital.

The pistol-wielding suspect who tried to kill Ulama managed to escape even before responding policemen and barangay leaders could reach the scene.