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Bomb attack kills 19 at Philippines airport

AFP, Davao
At least 19 people were killed and more than 100 others injured yesterday in a bomb attack at a key airport in the rebellion-torn southern Philippines, officials and reports said.
The blast struck a shed outside the Davao airport terminal amid the backdrop of increased Muslim guerrilla activity in the region ahead of a planned deployment of US anti-terror troops.
Another bomb exploded at a bus depot in Davao city but no one was injured while three others were wounded in a blast at a city health office in the nearby city of Taguma shortly after the airport attack.
The authorities shut down Davao airport as a precaution.
The relatively peaceful Davao has 1.2 million people and is the largest city of the southern Philippines.
"It's a very powerful bomb. The waiting shed literally exploded," Davao Vice Mayor Luis Bongoyan said of the airport blast.
"We have suspects and we are running after them," Mindanao police chief Edgardo Aglipay said without elaborating. Aglipay told GMA television the bomb had been planted in an abandoned rucksack.
Government-run Davao Medical Center listed 19 dead from the airport blast and more than 50 injured, including at least nine Filipinos. The identities and nationalities of the other victims were not immediately available.
Casualties at other hospitals raised the number of injured to 114.
Radio station DXDC placed the death toll at 30, without giving a source for the figure, which officials could not immediately confirm.
Television footage showed a long line of hospital beds full of bloodied patients being attended to by green-suited medical staff.
The powerful blast at about 5:15 pm (0915 GMT) obliterated a shed used by passengers and wellwishers outside the airport's passenger terminal, he said over ABS-CBN television.
An hour after the airport blast, ambulances and other emergency vehicles were still picking up casualties from the street outside the airport, cordoned off by yellow police tape and dozens of soldiers armed with assault rifles.
Flag-carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) suspended flights to Davao until further notice. The last of three PAL flights to Davao for the day was recalled back to Manila
about 35 minutes before touchdown, an airline statement said.
President Gloria Arroyo "strongly condemns the Davao bombing as a brazen act of terrorism, which will not go unpunished," presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.
Arroyo was holding an emergency meeting of the cabinet oversight committee on internal security to discuss the government response, he added.
Separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, blamed in the car bombing of Cotabato airport on Mindanao on February 20 that killed one person and left six others injured, condemned the Davao bombing and denied responsibility.
"We are expressing our willingness to coordinate in any investigation for the purpose of determining the real culprits in this bombing," MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said in a radio interview. He said the 12,500-member group only attacked "military targets".
The military launched a major offensive against the MILF in central Mindanao last month, killing nearly 200 guerrillas and displacing 214,000 civilians.
The attacks came amid planned deployment of US troops on the nearby island of Jolo, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf rebels with alleged links to al-Qaeda Islamic militants.
Mindanao's large cities including Davao were without electricity earlier Tuesday in suspected MILF sabotage attacks.