Posted on 04/02/2003 8:43:59 PM PST by hotpotato
Wed April 2, 2003 07:36 PM ET DAVAO, Philippines (Reuters) - Armed men lobbed grenades and sprayed bullets at three mosques in the southern Philippine city of Davao on Thursday, hours after a bomb hidden in a food stall killed 16 people in the same city, police said.
No one was hurt and there was minimal damage from the early morning attacks, which took place in the space of an hour between 2 and 3 a.m. local time.
Police said witnesses saw about five armed men in a vehicle throw the grenades and spray the mosques with automatic gunfire.
Mostly Christian Davao city is on Mindanao island, the heartland of the Philippines' minority Muslim population.
The death toll from the food stall blast on Wednesday had risen to 16 with 37 people wounded, according to doctors at the Davao Medical Center.
A nun, four policemen and several vendors were among those killed, police said.
The bomb exploded in a roadside barbecue stall near a wharf in Davao, around a month after a bomb blast at the city's airport killed 22 people.
Security forces in the mainly Roman Catholic country are fighting four rebel groups seeking an Islamic homeland in the south. They are also on alert for reprisals over the U.S.-led war in Iraq because of Manila's close ties with Washington.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo late on Wednesday ordered the military and police to "take all appropriate measures" against "these lawless elements and terrorists."
Arroyo, touring the region by boat to promote a new roll-on/roll-off ferry to speed the flow of goods around this nation of islands, is due to visit Davao later on Thursday to meet investigators.
Authorities said it was too early to speculate about who was responsible for the grenade attacks on the mosque. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group with about 12,000 men, denied any involvement in the Wednesday's blast at the wharf.
Police are hunting for 151 MILF members in connection with the blast at Davao airport, where the suspected bomber was killed, along with an American missionary and 20 other people.
The government and the MILF are working to rekindle sporadic peace talks with the help of Malaysia and Libya, but troops and the guerrillas clash regularly on Mindanao.
Philippines, 2003
France, 2010
USA, 2020
Since the police and generals are receiveing payments from the terrorists, thats going to be a problem.
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