Philippine mall bombing toll rises to 11

By DPA

Manila : The death toll in the bombing of an upscale shopping mall in the Philippine capital rose to 11 Sunday as authorities checked reports that an Al Qaeda-linked group was behind the attack, officials said.


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A 24-year-old man died in hospital early Sunday from severe injuries from Friday’s bomb attack at the Glorietta shopping centre in the financial district of Makati City, while rescuers recovered the body of a 23-year-old female computer programmer late Saturday.

Makati City Councillor JunJun Binay said 120 more were wounded in the blast but most of them had already been sent home after treatment at nearby hospitals.

Authorities have not identified a suspect in the bombing, but a man claiming to be a spokesman for the Al Qaeda-linked Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) owned responsibility for the attack.

The group of radical Muslim converts has carried out previous attacks in the country, including the bombing of a ferry in 2004 that killed more than 100 people and a series of bomb attacks in Manila and the southern Philippines in 2005 that killed 12 people.

Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro, an armed forces spokesman, said the military was still verifying the claim.

“There is no validation of the report yet,” he said. “The RSM has traditionally been known to conduct bombings but we can’t say for sure that they were behind it.”

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said foreign forensic experts, especially from the US and Australia, were helping local investigators.

He said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was scheduled to convene a national security meeting Tuesday in a bid to discuss measures to prevent a repeat of the attack.

Opposition legislators have aired suspicion that government forces could have perpetrated the bombing to divert the attention of people from a new corruption scandal plaguing the Arroyo administration.

Police chemists told Arroyo and other senior security officials during a briefing Saturday that they found components of military explosives in the samples they have taken from the bombsite.

The chemists identified the explosive chemical RDX, the main component of C-4 plastic explosive. C-4 is a common variety of military explosive which can be moulded into any desired shape. It is known for its durability, reliability and safety.

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