Another Mall blast in the Philippines

This is from this site. Any malls that I have visited have security guards at entrances who will inspect bags. This package was left in a baggage check area on the outside of the mall where there might not be such checks. Given the location I just wonder if the person who was killed was actually the target of the device. While terrorists such as the Abu Sayyaf are often indiscriminate , they try to kill as many as they can. Given where this device was placed it was unlikely to cause that many casualties.


One dead, four injured in Philippines mall blast
(AFP)

22 November 2007



COTABATO, Philippines - An explosion ripped through a shopping mall in the southern Philippines on Thursday, killing one person and injuring four others, officials said.


The blast killed an 18 year-old man working at the baggage check-in counter of the KMCC mall in Kidapawan city on Mindanao island, said Chief Superintendent Leo Ajero, the city police chief.

Four other people were injured, he added.

“It’s most probably an improvised explosive device,” provincial governor Manuel Pinol told local radio in a telephone interview.

“They left it at the baggage counter,” he said. “It exploded, resulting in the death of one person and injuries to several others.”

Police were investigating whether the blast was linked to a scheduled visit to the area by President Gloria Arroyo next week, Pinol said.

A powerful bomb killed four people including Wahab Akbar, a congressman in the southern Philippines, at the House of Representatives in Manila last week. The authorities are investigating possible political rivalry as the motive.