Bomb wounds Basilan outpost cop

COTABATO CITY — A bomber lobbed a fragmentation grenade at one side of a roadside police detachment in Barangay Sunrise in Isabela City in Basilan late Sunday, hurting a policeman and causing tension among villagers in houses around.

In a report on Monday to the office of Brig. Gen. Prexy D. Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, the Basilan Provincial Police Office stated that Patrolman Aldimar M. Salahuddin, then on duty, sustained shrapnel wounds in different parts of his body.

The governor of Basilan, Hadjiman H. Salliman, has condemned the bombing and offered an earnest reward for any information leading to the arrest of its perpetrators.

“That is something we will not take sitting down. We are helping the police resolve that grenade attack,” Mr. Salliman, chairman of the Basilan Provincial Peace and Order Council, said.

Talks are spreading around Isabela City, a port city in Basilan, stating that two men were behind the atrocity. One of them acted as a lookout, while the other threw the grenade beside the police checkpoint at an intersection in Barangay Sunrise. The duo escaped after a powerful explosion ripped through the surroundings.

Brig. Gen. Alvin V. Luzon, commander of the Army’s 101^st Brigade in Basilan, told reporters on Monday that personnel of their intelligence unit are helping gather information that could help put closure to the incident. — John Felix M. Unson