Vendor slightly hurt in one of two Basilan IED blasts

CAMP SK PENDATUN, Maguindanao --- An ambulant roadside vendor was slightly hurt (not two as earlier reported-ed) in one of two explosions that rocked Isabela City in Basilan one after another at dusk Monday.

The victim, Evangeline Gudilla Francisco, who sustained superficial shrapnel wounds, is now recuperating in a hospital.

The first blast was in the vicinity of a Jollibee food outlet in the city proper of Isabela.

Security camera recordings showed that the improvised explosive device used in the attack, inside a yellow plastic bag, was left by a man on a motorcycle and went off in less than three minutes after the suspect had sped away.

Officials of the Army’s 101^st Infantry Brigade and the Basilan Provincial Police Office said the IED was detonated from a distance using a mobile phone.

Another explosion rocked several minutes later the premises of a private bus terminal in Valderosa Street in Isabela City’s Barangay La Piedad, a little farther from the scene of the first explosion.

The IED was placed in a box delivered by someone, for shipment to somewhere via the unit 281 of the Biel Transportation Company.

In an initial report, the Basilan provincial police said a vigilant militiaman guarding the private terminal noticed something inside the package, hurled it away and exploded as it landed on a concrete pavement.

Francisco, who was near the scene, was hit by fragments of the IED, according to police investigators. (John Unson)