A source within the military said Thursday that further verification and investigation are still ongoing to determine the possible involvement of a Yemeni couple in the Jolo, Sulu cathedral bombing last Sunday that killed 21 persons injured scores of others.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana did not discount the possibility that a Yemeni couple may have something to do with the incident.
The source said there is still no definitive answer yet regarding that matter.
However, the source said there is earlier intelligence information that a couple from Indonesia arrived in Jolo and linked up with the group of Abu Sayyaf commander Hatib Hajab Sawadjan.
The couple, according to intelligence reports, brought the bags and detonator cellphones and denonated the bombs themselves at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo.
“Though the source is unsure of their nationality but they are sure to be foreigners and not locals. They were identified to have brought the bags and detonator cellphones and detonated the bombs. They are suspected to be suicide bombers,” the source said.
“Two sets of body parts that are completely mangled and still unclaimed and unidentified. So the verification is ongoing. But maybe SND (Secretary of National Defense) is privy to more and better intel which is the basis of his statement,” the source said. (Francis T. Wakefield)
