Bomb at market kills 5 in southern Philippines

Manila, June 23: A bomb killed five people at a crowded public market in the southern Philippines today in an attack that police said was aimed at a powerful provincial governor allied with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Police and army officials said the improvised explosives were hidden in a parked car and detonated as the motorcade of Andal Ampatuan, governor of Maguindanao province on the troubled island of Mindanao, was passing by the market in Sharif Aguak town.

''The governor is safe and is now resting at his home,'' provincial administrator Norie Unas told reporters.

Four of those killed, including bodyguards and a former town mayor, were riding in the sixth car of the convoy going to Ampatuan's farm, Unas said.

At least five people, including two children, were wounded in the blast at about 7 am (1430 hrs ist), police said.

''There's no other target but the governor,'' said Lumana Gunting, the police chief of Maguindanao province.

Ampatuan, who has survived several assassination attempts, wields a great deal of influence on an island rife with Muslim and communist rebels, as well as local warlords.

One of his sons, Zaldy, was elected in August as the governor of a five-province autonomous Muslim region in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country with backing from the national government in Manila. Three other sons are town mayors.

Arroyo's perceived support for Zaldy Ampatuan angered former Muslim rebels from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who had held the governor post's since signing a peace deal in 1996.

Critics accused Arroyo of backing Zaldy Ampatuan to repay debts from the 2004 presidential poll, in which her rivals failed to win any votes in several areas controlled by his father.

Arroyo weathered an impeachment complaint in Congress last year over allegations of election cheating, many of which centred on parts of Mindanao.

Nearly two decades after the government in Manila created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, its provinces remain among the poorest in the country.

That poverty, as well as government neglect and corruption, has fuelled a rebellion in the south that has killed more than 120,000 people since the late 1960s and stunted development of an area rich in minerals, rice and other natural resources.

Reuters