A bomb killed six people at a crowded public market in the southern Philippines on Friday in an attack police said was aimed at a powerful provincial governor allied with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
One army officer, Colonel Felipe Tabas, said there were indications the bombing was carried out by Jemaah Islamiah, a regional network of Muslim militants linked to al Qaeda.
But Andal Ampatuan, governor of Maguindanao province on the troubled island of Mindanao, dismissed that idea and said he suspected his attackers came from another group "considered as an enemy of the state", which he did not identify.
A spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said the country's largest Muslim rebel group was not responsible. The MILF has maintained a truce since 2003 and is holding regular Malaysian-brokered peace talks with the Philippine government.
Police and army officials said the explosives, made from four mortar shells, were hidden in a van and detonated as Ampatuan's motorcade was passing the market in Sharif Aguak town. At least nine people, including two children, were wounded in the blast, police said.
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