7 hurt in Cotabato City blast; suspect nabbed

(Updated 4:40 p.m.) MANILA, Philippines - Seven people, including a police officer, were hurt in a grenade blast Monday morning in Cotabato City, a Mindanao-based military official said. Maj. Randolph Cabangbang, spokesman of the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command, said the the grenade was hurled by four suspects, two of them female, in front of the Co Tiongbon grocery story along Sinsuat Avenue at about 11:45 a.m. Philippine Army spokesman Lt. Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr. said one suspect was arrested at a checkpoint shortly after the incident. "One person has been held by checkpoint personnel who could be the grenade thrower," he said in a text message to reporters. Six of the seven casualties were identified as PO1 Rhoderick Sta. Ana of the Cotabato City Police, Shirley Salima, Francisco Duran, Anwar Amil, Francisco Duran, and 11-year-old Aladdin Ungga. The blast occurred while Muslims in Cotabato City were celebrating Isra Wal Miraj, the ascension of Prophet Mohammed to heaven Last July 5, an IED went off at a lechon (roasted pig) house in front of the Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral at the corner of Sinsuat Avenue and Quezon Avenue, killing at least five people and wounding dozens of others. Authorities have tagged members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Special Operations Group as behind the July 5 blast based on bomb fragments, although MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu had denied the involvement of his group in the incident. Fighting between Moro rebels and government troops flared in August last year when the government scrapped a preliminary autonomy deal, prompting three MILF commanders to launch a deadly rampage in Christian communities. Government forces reacted with a major military offensive.- with Malu Cadelina Manar, GMANews.TV