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One dead, 37 injured in Philippines blast

One person was killed and 37 injured on Friday when a suspected bomb exploded outside a bus depot in the southern Philippine port of Zamboanga, the city mayor said.

Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco told ABS-CBN television by telephone that local authorities suspected the al-Qaeda-linked armed group Abu Sayyaf was behind the attack. She said the explosion may be part of a plot by the Abu Sayyaf, which has been blamed for the deadliest bombings to hit the Philippines, to break 57 of their comrades out of the Zamboanga city jail.

“We have received notices (from the intelligence community) that they are going to be rescued by their comrades, who are ready to die,” Climaco said.

The Abu Sayyaf, a loose band of a few hundred militants founded with seed money from Al Qaeda, has been blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history. These have included the bombing of a ferry in Manila in 2004 in which more than 100 people died, and repeated kidnappings of foreigners in the southern Philippines who are usually ransomed off for huge amounts.
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