A young Muslim separatist guerrilla carrying explosives in a backpack set off the airport bomb in the southern Philippines that killed 21, officials said today.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel (23) was among the dead in Tuesday's blast in the city of Davao that injured more than 150, they said.
A Defence spokesman identified the suspect as Muntazer Sudangwho lived in Kabacan town in the center of the southern Mindanao island, of which Davao is the commercial capital.
It was not clear if the suspect planned to leave the package in the airport or if he planned to die in the attack, which ripped apart a packed airport waiting lounge.
Suicide bombing is almost unheard of in the Philippines and is not known to have been used as a strategy by Muslim or communist rebel groups in the country.
The 12,500-member MILF, the country's largest separatist group waging a 25-year campaign for an Islamic state in the southern third of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, has denied in role in the bombing.
The Abu Sayyaf group, also operating in the southern Philippines, had on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the blast but said the bomb had gone off earlier than intended.
But the government had rejected the claim by the Abu Sayyaf, classified as a terrorist group by Washington for its alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
AFP
