Three wounded in grenade attack on US-funded NGO in Philippines

Apr 25, 2007, 3:55 GMT

Cotabato City, Philippines - Three people were wounded when a grenade exploded inside the office of a US-funded development organization in the southern Philippines, police said Wednesday.

Unidentified suspects lobbed two grenades Tuesday evening into the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) office in Pikit town in North Cotabato province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, said Senior Superintendent Federico Dulay, provincial police director.

The first grenade exploded, injuring two engineers and a field worker and damaging office equipment, he said. The second grenade was a dud, he said.

Provincial Governor Emmanuel Pinol condemned the attack, which he said could be related to extortion demands received recently by GEM workers for millions of pesos in 'protection money.'

'It is very unfortunate when these people, who have been working on a road network for our poor people in Pikit, are harassed by extortionists,' he said.

GEM is a non-governmental organization funded by the US Agency for International Development. It oversees development projects in the troubled southern region of Mindanao.

The attack was the third blast in seven days in Mindanao.

On Sunday, a bomb wounded one woman in a farming village in Midsayap town.

On April 18, two people, including the suspected bomber, were killed when a homemade bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded in Cotabato City.

Some parts of Mindanao have been the scene of decades of armed conflict as Muslim factions in the region have fought to become independent from the largely Christian Philippines.

Mindanao has also been hit in the past by terrorist attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels and Jemaah Islamiyah militants, who are operating in the area.