Police early yesterday disarmed a powerful time bomb hours before it was set to explode near a radio station in the busy business district in southern Philippine's Cotabato City, officials said.

The bomb was allegedly planted by a hitherto rebel group which calls itself the Indigenous People's Federal Army, according to police.

A senior police officer, Jesus Beljot, said the makeshift explosive device was planted at the base of an electrical post near the Radio Mindanao Network (RMN) in Rosary Heights and had been disarmed around 5 a.m.

"We received a phone call from a concerned citizen who informed us that a package suspected of containing a bomb was left near the radio station DxMY-RMN, so we immediately dispatched the Explosive and Ordnance Demolition team," Beljot said.

The commander of the Army's anti-terrorist task force 'Sagitarius', Col. Essel Soriano, said: "It was a powerful bomb alright, and we were just lucky to disarm it on time … before it could explode."

Soriano said the bomb was assembled from an 81mm mortar shell, one round of 40mm rifle grenade and 15 rounds of M16 ammunition wired to an alarm timer. He described the timebomb as "complex."

He said a "document" was also recovered near the package and it was signed by a new group that calls itself the 'Indigenous People's Federal Army'.

"We still do not know anything about this new group," Soriano said.

Several bombing incidents in the city and nearby provinces have largely been blamed on Muslim separatists, particularly the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which is currently holding peace negotiations with Manila, and the extremist Abu Sayyaf. Soriano said the bomb was powerful enough to cause considerable destruction to the area around it.

"It is good that the bomb was discovered before it could explode today and the area where the explosive was planted is a busy district and there are lots of houses there," he said.
Red alert

The police and army have been on red alert status since December 16 after intelligence reports said Moro guerrillas would mount attacks on government and civilian targets at the end of the Ramadan to retaliate for the military's offensive against the Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Police also refused to link the failed bomb plot to another incident last week in Manila where the authorities safely disabled another explosive device at a busy street corner in Makati City.

The bomb, which was made of ammonium nitrate rigged to an alarm clock, was discovered near the Allied Bank building in Ayala Avenue by a labourer.

Scores of people, including those from the British Embassy, were evacuated after the discovery of the bomb.

A day after the discovery of the explosive in Ayala, two other bombs which failed to explode were discovered in Makati's commercial Greenbelt District and in Mandaluyong City.

Police in Manila had also been placed on high alert after reports that certain political groups are planning to destabilise the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Last December 30, more than 40 people were killed after a series of bomb blasts inside a jampacked train coach, a commuter bus and three other locations in Metro Manila.