Grenade intended for Sulu soldiers hurts 18 civilians instead

COTABATO CITY --- Eighteen residents of Jolo town in Sulu were hurt in a grenade blast Tuesday morning along a busy thoroughfare in the seaside municipality.Reports reaching the office here of Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said the bombers may have targeted a light Army truck full of soldiers, then passing through a busy section of the American-era Scott Road in downtown Jolo, but missed.Instead of landing on the rear carrier bed of the Kia ¾ tonner 4x4 pick-up truck, the fragmentation grenade fell on one side of the street and went off, wounding 18 pedestrians.The passengers of the Army vehicle were off duty personnel of the Army’s 35thInfantry Battalion, on their way to their headquarters at the Bud Datu area west of Jolo, capital of Sulu, from the town’s commercial district.Sulu is a component province of ARMM, whose territory also covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, which are both in mainland Mindanao, and the islands of Basilan and Tawi-Tawi.Some of the injured civilians were students of a vocational school located near the scene of the explosion.Hataman told reporters he had ordered ARMM’s police director, Chief Supt. Ronald Estilles, to validate reports fed by local officials indicating that members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) were behind the bombing.Hataman said he also received information purporting that the bombers indeed planned to bomb the Army truck using a grenade, but miscalculated its distance from the spot where an ASG bandit hurled the explosive from.Hataman, presiding chairman of the regional peace and order council, said their Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team will extend relief support to the grenade victims, now undergoing medication at the Sulu provincial hospital.