Bomb Kills At Least 12 In Philippines

At least 12 people were killed and another 20 wounded when a bomb exploded during a town festival Tuesday in the southern Philippines, police said.

North Cotabato provincial Police Chief Federico Dulay said the bomb, believed to be made from an 88mm mortar shell, went off at about 8 p.m. in front of the town hall of Makilala town in the southern part of the province.

"Clearly this is a terrorist act,'' Dulay said.

Quoting witnesses, Dulay said an unidentified man carrying a plastic bag went to a stall selling alcohol in a crowded area along a highway during celebrations of the town's founding anniversary, bought a bottle of wine, then left.

The explosion occurred minutes later, killing a man and a woman on the spot, he said. Ten other people died en route to a hospital in nearby Kidapawan city or while being treated there.

Another bomb injured five people earlier Tuesday in a public market in Tacurong city, in southern Sultan Kudarat province, as U.S. and Philippine officials said they had received credible intelligence that a terrorist group may be planning to carry out bombings in the southern Mindanao region, where the wife of a top Indonesian militant was captured last week.

A pro-government militiaman found the first homemade bomb and hurled it away from a crowd before it exploded, preventing a larger number of casualties, a military official said.

The militiaman inspected a bag filled with corn-chip snack packs abandoned by two unidentified men and found a bomb inside. He threw the bag away from a crowd in a public market in Tacurong city, causing it to explode, army Col. Felipe Tabas said.

It wasn't immediately clear if the two blasts were connected, and nobody had claimed responsibility for either of the explosions.

"Nobody can do this except terrorists," Tabas told The Associated Press by telephone, referring to the earlier blast.

The bombing took place despite strengthened security in the public market because of intelligence reports it could be targeted by terrorist groups. About 10 pro-government militiamen had been deployed to help secure the market, he said.

Muslim and communist guerrillas have operated in the past in Tacurong, a predominantly Christian agricultural region 590 miles southeast of Manila.