IED exploded in Maguindanao, another found in Cotabato City bridge

COTABATO CITY -- Police detonated Monday night an improvised explosive device (IED) under
a major bridge here hours after a powerful IED exploded in Maguindanao town.

Senior Insp.
Rustum Pastolero, police station 3 chief, said the IED, composed of black power
with cut nails as shrapnel and a mobile phone as triggering device, was found
at about 8 p.m., two hours after a similar bomb went off in Talayan,
Maguindanao. It was
planted under the bridge, near the police and Army outpost at the approach of
Tamontaka Bridge, Pastolero said.

Upon seeing
the device, bomb experts immediately cordoned off the area and detonated the
IED that experts described as powerful and could cause the collapse of the
bridge, the lone link of Cotabato City to Maguindanao and Cotabato airport.

Obviously,
the IED was intended for police and soldiers, Pastolero said when asked why it
was placed under the bridge’s approach.
He said the police and Army Special Forces detachment is located at the
approach of Tamontaka bridge.

Two hours
earlier, a powerful IED exploded at the gate of the town hall in Talayan,
Maguindanao. Nobody was hurt but it caused minor damages to the sentry.

Colonel
Roberto Sarmiento, commander of the 19th Infantry Battalion, said unidentified
men planted the IED at the gate apparently to case injuries, even death, to
local officials coming out of the government facility.

Luckily, it
was set off at the time when nobody was near the gate, he told reporters. The IED went off at 6 p.m.

It was the
handiwork of groups or individuals who are against the government, Sarmiento
said when asked who could be behind the attempt.

It was not
clear if the Talayan bombing was connected to the attempt to set off IED at a
bridge in Cotabato City.

Both IEDs had
black powder, cut nails as shrapnel and mobile phone as triggering devices.