Explosives experts defuse bomb in Cotabato

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Ordnance experts promptly deactivated Monday an improvised explosive device children found near the operation center of the city’s power utility.

Superintendent Aldrin Gonzalez, spokesman of the Police Regional Office-12, said Tuesday the IED was fashioned from a 60 millimeter mortar projectile rigged with a blasting contraption attached to a mobile phone.

The IED was first spotted by children playing in a grassy lot behind the fenced compound here of the Cotabato Light and Power Company.

The firm’s franchise area covers all of the 37 barangays here and nearby villages in Datu Odin Sinsuat and Sultan Kudarat towns, both in the first district of Maguindanao.

Responding police and Army bomb disposal teams managed to immediately deactivate the IED.

The Cotabato City police office is still trying to establish who could be responsible for the foiled bombing, preceded by the fatal August 28 and September 2 IED attacks in Isulan, capital town of Sultan Kudarat.

Five were killed and more than 40 others were injured in the two incidents.

Authorities also foiled an attempt to bomb the premises of the municipal police station in Datu Odin Sinsuat on Sunday night using an IED placed underneath an upholstered seat of a motorcycle.

The town center of Datu Odin Sinsuat is only 38 kilometers south of Cotabato City.

The motorcycle was noticed by vigilant residents and policemen in the area, enabling military bomb disposal men to intervene immediately.