Cell phone bomb kills 2 near Philippine air base

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A homemade bomb exploded outside an air force base in the southern Philippines on Thursday, killing two people and wounding 19 others in a possible attack by al Qaeda-linked militants, police said.

The cell phone-detonated bomb was apparently concealed in one of several bags of civilian commuters waiting to hitch a ride on an air force C-130 cargo plane outside Edwin Andrews Air Base in Zamboanga city, police Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal said.

A man and a woman, both waiting to get on the plane, were killed in the blast, police said.

American troops providing counterterrorism training to Filipino soldiers were encamped at the air base, but none was injured, police said.

Caringal said no one had claimed responsibility for the bomb, which also damaged three parked cars and a lawmaker's office in a two-story building across the street from the base.

Two of the lawmaker's employees were wounded, including Voltaire Mahatol.

"The blast was so powerful I fell to the floor from my seat in the office," Mahatol told The Associated Press by telephone.

Most of the wounded were civilian relatives of soldiers waiting to get a free ride on the Manila-bound C-130. At least four Filipino employees of AMORE, a private group helping implement USAID-funded community power projects in the south, were among those wounded, police said.

U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney condemned the attack. "This is a terrible incident. We hope those who did this will be brought to justice," she said.

Investigators were looking at the possibility that al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf militants were involved in the attack. The militants have clashed in recent days with Philippine marines on nearby Basilan island.

"One possibility is that this is an Abu Sayyaf diversionary attack or a retaliation," Caringal said.

The Abu Sayyaf has targeted Zamboanga city, a predominantly Roman Catholic trading city, in the past. They were blamed by police for two nearly simultaneous bombings that damaged a cathedral and a commercial building in April.

A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said police have received intelligence reports of a plan by Muslim militants to stage abductions and bombings in three southern cities, including Zamboanga, about 530 miles south of Manila.

Caringal said he placed police forces in Zamboanga on alert and ordered more street patrols.

Despite the bombing, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo planned to go ahead with a scheduled flight later Thursday to the southernmost province of Tawi Tawi, her security aides told reporters.

The military says there are about 300 Abu Sayyaf rebels in the south, scattered in the Zamboanga region and two nearby islands.

The U.S. troops in Zamboanga city are restricted from public areas for security reasons.

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