It does not appear to have been a suicide bombing. A backpack was left in a shelter outside the terminal. There would be no security checks in an area like that, it would have been very easy to do.
Very difficult to determine who was responsible on the basis of current evidence. I've no doubt that blame will be placed on the Abu Sayyaf. It happened way outside their normal territory, though, and the subsequent explosion in Tagum (to the north) is even farther outside. It would be a fairly simple matter for Abu Sayyaf people to get there, but it would still be unusual.
A number of previous bombings well outside the Abu Sayyaf area have been blamed on that group, in my opinion on very scanty evidence.
The MILF territory is much closer, but that sort of action is not normal MILF practice. They have already denied responsibility, for what little that's worth.
It's generally believed that the Jemaah Islamiyah network, which is based in Indonesia and Malaysia but has tendrils throughout the region, has people working in the Philippines independently of the major Muslim rebel groups. The explosives used in several bombings in Indonesia attributed to this group were acquired in Manila.
The Davao bomb apparently used TNT, which is very easy to acquire here.
Opinion locally seems to be shaping up in two camps: the ones that believe that it was done by Muslim extremists as a response to the US involvement, and those who think that it was set by pro-deployment groups (which include fanatical "Christian" militias with a track record of using terrorist methods) to generate sympathy for the deployment. I think the latter view unlikely, though not impossible. It will doubtless attain widespread support; conspiracy theories are popular here.
We will wait and see what evidence emerges. I'm not jumping to any conclusions. One thing that is certain is that there is no way the current US deployment is going to stop this sort of thing.
Odd feeling; I've passed through that airport many times, though not lately. |
