“State of lawlessness merely calls out the military or the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) to do law enforcement operations normally done only by the PNP (Philippine National Police)”.
Advertisement
The explosion went off at about 10.30 p.m.at a night market outside the Marco Polo hotel, a place Duterte visits often and used for meetings during his national election campaign.
The explosion instantly killed 14 people and injured 71 others as the market is a very popular area in the city.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf – armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles – has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortion in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.
Philippine police have taken into custody a man who may be involved in Sept 2 night’s blast that killed 14 people and injured almost 70 others in the southern city of Davao.
Duterte-Carpio said the money, which came from the funds of the city government, would be given in exchange for any information leading to the arrest of those behind the blast.
However, Mr Duterte also ordered a military offensive to eliminate the Abu Sayyaf, a small but extremely unsafe group of militants that has declared allegiance to Islamic State and vowed to continue fighting.
The PNP chief also said they were still looking at the possibility that drug syndicates paid terrorists to bomb Davao City, amid the Duterte administration’s bloody war against drugs.
National Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the Abu Sayyaf had struck back after suffering heavy casualties on its stronghold of Jolo island about 900 kilometres from Davao.
Police in the capital Manila are on high alert following the deadly blast.
Since his inauguration as president at the end of June, some 2,000 people have been killed in a nationwide crackdown on drug dealing.
Advertisement
Davao is part of the southern region of Mindanao, where Islamic militants have waged a decades-long separatist insurgency that has claimed more than 120,000 lives. Abu Rami, a spokesperson for the extremist group warned of more attacks in retaliation against the military, after it launched an offensive against the group, following its killing of 15 soldiers. This will prove popular with the Philippine people who have exhausted of the violence the drug trade has brought to the country.
