GOVERNMENT troops seized bomb components, including 700 kilos of ammonium nitrate, in a raid in Patikul town in Sulu on Saturday morning, a military official reported yesterday.
Lt. Col. Gerard Monfort, spokesman of the military’s Joint Task Force Sulu, said soldiers swooped down at an abandoned house in Barangay Latih based on information provided by a resident and recovered 81 mm mortar fuse and the 700 kilos of ammonium nitrate which the Abu Sayyaf has used in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices they detonated in Sulu in the past.
Ammonium nitrate is also being used by farmers as fertilizer though its sale is regulated.
Monfort said investigation is being held to establish the identity of people behind the recovered bomb components.
“That’s their (Abu Sayyaf) scheme. They hide them (bomb components) in abandoned places or strategic areas. It’s still unfinished IED because they are mere components but the question is, who is going to prepare them?” said Monfort.
JTF Sulu commander Maj. Gen. Corleto Vinluan Jr. commended the 6th Mechanized Battalion of the 1st Brigade Combat Team for its “very remarkable achievement” in recovering the bomb components, adding: “The recovered items can be used as IEDs that could cause tremendous destruction beyond our imagination. The incident today only points out that the involvement of the civilians is very vital in our security effort.”
The PNP yesterday said the profile of a female has emerged in the tissue samples from the remains of a suicide bomber at an Army camp in Indanan, Sulu last Sept. 8.
PNP deputy spokesman Lt. Col. Kimberly Molitas said the PNP Crime Lab found “partial female DN profile” in 20 human tissues, and flesh and bone specimen recovered from the scene of the explosion.
Molitas said the findings will strengthen eye witness account that the suicide bomber was a woman but added they will still have to wait for an official report for the interpretation of the DNA results.
The military identified Abu Sayyaf leader Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan as the brains behind the suicide bombing, the fourth incident in the country. — With Raymond Africa
