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Blasts kill 14 in southern Philippines
At least 14 people have been killed in two explosions in the southern Philippines city of General Santos.
Over 40 more were injured by the blasts, which occured within minutes of each other.
The police linked the blasts to an obscure group called the Indigenous People's Federal Army, which campaign for a federal state for tribal groups. But a man linked to the Abu Sayyaf Muslim rebel group telephoned a radio station and said: "We did it".
The first blast occurred outside the Fitmark Department Store, where a bomb had been left in a motorised tricycle. Police said that all the injuries resulted from this first explosion. Minutes later, the second bomb went off in a residential area, when a device was thrown from a moving car, but no casualties were reported. Many of those killed or injured were street traders. Nineteen are reported to be seriously wounded.
There were also reports of a third explosion at the city's bus station.
Police said they had received a phone call warning that 18 devices had been planted in the city. A man identifying himself as Abu Muslim Al-Ghazi telephoned a local radio station to claim responsibility for the blasts on behalf of Abu Sayyaf.
21 April, 2002, BBC
Bomb explodes in Spain's Basque region
Police in Spain say a car bomb has exploded in Getxo, near Bilbao, in the Basque region.
There are no reports of any casualties. The police had cordoned off the area after a warning was received in the name of the Basque separatist group, ETA.
The explosion comes a day after the Spanish government adopted a controversial draft law aimed at banning any political group judged to be supporting terrorism.
20 April, 2002
Dissidents 'behind police centre blast'
Dissident republicans are the most likely suspects behind a bomb at Northern Ireland's police training centre, Belfast's top officer has said.
A police patrol was investigating reports of suspicious activity outside Garnerville College when they discovered a suspect parcel on Tuesday.
Army bomb experts were called in and about 100 people within the college were moved out, along with the residents of several surrounding homes. The device exploded just after midnight while it was being examined.
There were no reports of any injuries but the back gates of the college, where the device was found, were damaged.
Belfast area commander, Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan, said: "The first suspicion must be in terms of dissident republican groups, but it is at a very early stage. "This is not an attack on the police service but an attack on all the people in Northern Ireland who want to move forwards."
17 April, 2002, BBC
Drug dealer's 'Ribena carton bomb'
A drug dealer made a petrol bomb from a Ribena carton as part of a war between rival gangs on the streets of Birmingham, a court heard.
Sandeep Kandola, 20, and Danny Singh Johal, 21, were jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for possessing explosives and supplying heroin. The court heard how two dealers helped transport and plant a cache of petrol and nail bombs to target rivals.
On one occasion, Kandola taped a petrol bomb fashioned from a Ribena carton to the window of a rival dealer's house and detonated it - though it caused only minor damage. Johal, meanwhile, became a weapons carrier for Shahid, transporting a bag containing nail and petrol bombs and CS gas canisters to an address in Dudley.
16 April, 2002, BBC
Bomb targets Colombian candidate
Presidential frontrunner Alvaro Uribe Velez has escaped unhurt from a explosion that killed three people in the northern town of Barranquilla.
The blast is believed to be the third assassination attempt on the hardline right-winger who looks set to win Colombia's leadership elections next month.
At least 13 people were injured when the roadside bomb was detonated by remote control as Mr Uribe Velez's armoured car left a campaign stop at a public market in the Caribbean coast city.
Suspicion for the attack has fallen immediately on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) which detests Mr Uribe Velez and has twice tried to kill him.
15 April, 2002, BBC
Blast bomb attacks on police stations
Blast bomb attacks at two police stations in County Down are believed to be the work of dissident republicans. No-one was reported hurt in the blasts but police have condemned the acts as reckless and dangerous. Homes near the stations in Downpatrick and Ardglass were evacuated. A police source said improvised devices were used in both attacks. It is believed dissident republicans who have carried out a previous attack on a station in nearby Castlewellan were behind both incidents.
13 April, 2002
Bomb kills Bolivian media chief's wife
The wife of the owner of one of Bolivia's main national newspapers El Diario has been killed in a car bomb explosion in La Paz.
Police say Tereza Guzman de Carrasco died instantaneously when a bomb went off in her car on Wednesday night. Her driver was seriously injured.
Correspondents say Mrs Carrasco was on her way home after visiting her husband Jorge Carrasco in the headquarters of his paper. It has been reported that the victim's husband was involved in a prolonged dispute with members of his family over the ownership of the newspaper.
11 April, 2002 , BBC
Paris synagogue under new attack
There has been a second petrol bomb attack on the synagogue in the Paris suburb of Garges-les-Gonesse.
The building suffered only minor damage in the attack, which is the latest in a series of petrol bombings of Jewish targets. The French authorities have stepped up security outside Jewish institutions, and arrested more than 30 people after the upsurge in anti-Semitic violence.
Correspondents say the attacks are believed to have been carried out by Arab youths in protests against the events in the Middle East.
10 April, 2002, BBC
A nationalist SDLP assembly member has said a petrol bomb attack on his County Tyrone home will not silence him.
Mr McMenamin, his wife and two sons were asleep in the house at the time. He said they could have been burned to death if the fire had spread to his home.
Mr McMenamin blamed the attack on republicans opposed to his support of his party's decision to back policing reforms and take its places on the new Policing Board.
8 April, 2002, BBC
Two bombs have exploded in a busy night-life district of Villavicencio, south-east of the Colombian capital, Bogota, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 70.
No one has so far claimed responsibility for the blast, which took place as people were leaving bars and restaurants.
Violence has been rising in Colombia since February, when the government ended a three-year peace process with the FARC. Just hours before the car bomb a priest was assassinated as he said Mass in the south of the country.
"This is indiscriminate terrorism," police colonel Jorge Alirio Baron told the Reuters news agency.
Several buildings were heavily damaged, including the offices of Super Noticias radio station, and several cars were wrecked, the Associated Press reported.
8 April, 2002 , BBC
Calcutta bomb blast near police HQ
There has been an explosion in the Indian city of Calcutta, in a shopping centre opposite the headquarters of the Police Special Branch.
A number of shops in the complex were damaged, but police said no one was killed or injured. Intelligence officials say they are still trying to determine who was responsible for the blast.
5 April, 2002, BBC
A bomb has exploded in the Indonesian town of Ambon, killing four people and injuring about 50, some critically.
It was the first serious violation of a ceasefire deal signed in February after three years of Muslim-Christian violence that left thousands dead.
The device exploded in a Christian-controlled part of the port city, in the eastern Moluccan islands. The bomb exploded late morning outside a karaoke bar on a central shopping street, close to the governor's office.
One person died at the scene and three others in hospital or on the way to it, according to a hospital employee.
3 April, 2002, BBC
Pakistan explosion kills two, injures 11
Police in Pakistan say at least two people were killed, and 11 others injured, when a bomb went off at a bus station in the northern Waziristan region.
The explosion destroyed a bus and set fire to nearby shops in Spenki Raghzai, a small town 380 kilometres south of Peshawar. No one has admitted carrying out the attack.
1 April, 2002 , BBC
Israel hit by double suicide attack
A suicide bomb attack has killed 15 people in a crowded restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa.
Up to 30 people were injured - several of them critically - in the explosion. The bomber was also killed.
It was the fourth such attack since the start of the current Jewish Passover holiday.
Less than two hours later, another suicide bomber atacked an office for paramedics in the Jewish settlement of Efrat, south of the West Bank town of Bethlehem. At least four people were reported to be wounded, one critically. The bomber was killed. An Israeli police commander at the scene in Haifa said it had been a suicide bomb attack.
The blast coincided with an intensification of the Israeli siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat inside his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.
31 March, 2002, BBC
Booby-trap device 'attempted murder'
Police have said an attack in County Tyrone in which a booby trap bomb was discovered under a car was attempted murder.
The man targeted by the bombers was a former member of the Royal Irish Regiment. Almost 150 people were removed from their homes in Sion Mills following a security alert.
Dissident republicans are being blamed for leaving the semtex device which was fitted with a mercury tilt switch. It was defused by army bomb disposal experts.
Police inspector Harry Johnstone confirmed that the device was a booby-trap device. He condemned those who would carry out such an attack which he said was "an attempt to murder".
29 March, 2002, BBC
Bomb blasts rock Nepalese capital
At least 27 people have been wounded by a bomb blast in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
Some of them have abdomen injuries and others have fractured limbs Police said a device exploded on a bridge over the river Bishnumati during the morning rush-hour, wounding a number of passers-by, including some school children.
There was also a second explosion near the house of a former army general, but there were no casualties. Maoist rebels, who have waged a six-year campaign to overthrow Nepal's constitutional monarchy, are suspected of being responsible.
29 March, 2002, BBC
British peacekeeping troops were evacuated from a base in Afghanistan after a controlled explosion was carried out on a suspicious package.
The package, discovered on Thursday outside the gate of the base near Kabul, contained only bricks.
It is believed the incident may have been an attempt to test security procedures.
The base is called the Brigade Support Group (BSG) and houses about 1,800 troops from the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Bulgaria.
29 March, 2002 , BBC
Deadly suicide bomb hits Israeli hotel
At least 19 Israelis have been killed in a suicide bombing at a hotel in the northern seaside resort of Netanya.
At least another 100 have been injured, 26 seriously, after the blast, which happened at the Park Hotel in the centre of the town.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the attack and promised to take "action against any Palestinian group responsible for this operation". The Islamic militant group Hamas has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which took place just after sunset on Wednesday as Israelis started celebrating the week-long Passover holiday.
The attack came as Arab leaders held a summit in Beirut to endorse a Saudi Arabian peace initiative for the Middle East.
28 March, 2002, BBC
Bomb explodes at Nepalese newspaper
One person has been injured in Nepal after a bomb exploded at the office of a state-run newspaper.
The authorities suspect Maoist rebels carried out the attack on the Gorkhapatra newspaper in Kathmandu.
The device exploded in a downstairs washroom.
25 March, 2002, BBC
Hidden camera traps bomb hoaxer
An animal rights activist has been jailed for four years for a series of hoax bomb calls - including one which led to the evacuation of the London Eye.
Neil Bartlett admitted making calls to companies he alleged had links with the animal testing laboratory Huntington Life Sciences or which he accused of polluting the planet. He was eventually caught when the calls were traced to a phone box.
Judge Anthony Thorpe said: "Offences of this nature cause great concern to the public, particularly in the light of terrorist attacks all too common all over the world. "The courts have a duty to protect the public particularly from acts tending to induce fear and panic."
Michelle Strange, defending Bartlett, said he took full responsibility but did not realise how much disruption he caused. "He had no idea of the number of people's lives which would be interrupted."
The court heard how Bartlett first contacted pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in April 2001 claiming an incendiary device had been planted at its offices. In the same month, he called drugs firm Novartis and the bank Morgan Stanley. In July 2001 he called Exxon Mobile, saying they were polluting the planet. But it was the call on 13 August to oil company Shell, which is based near Waterloo station in London, which caused the most chaos. He claimed two incendiary devices had been placed in the men's toilets.
A recording of the message was played to the court. In it, Bartlett said: "They will ignite in one hour. This is because you support Huntington Life Sciences." Police evacuated the building, closed several nearby streets and the London Eye. Four hundred passengers had to leave, costing the attraction £4,900. Waterloo Bridge was also closed and police were considering evacuating Waterloo Station.
Police intelligence led to a surveillance operation to catch the hoaxer. The calls were traced to a phone box in the village of Rustington, West Sussex. A tiny camera was fitted in the phone box which filmed Bartlett arriving on a mountain bike and making the calls.
22 March, 2002, BBC
A car bomb near the United States embassy in the Peruvian capital, Lima, has killed at least four people and wounded many others, according to police and local media.
There has been no immediate information on who planted the device.
The blast comes just three days before President George W Bush arrives in Lima as part of a South American tour.
21 March, 2002, BBC
Police in Kashmir say two children were killed in a bomb explosion after people gathered at a disused house where militants had been involved in a gun battle with the security forces.
Another 25 people - most of them children - were wounded in the blast in the southern district of Pulwama.
14 March, 2002 , BBC
Suicide attack hits Jerusalem cafe
At least 11 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a suicide bomb attack in a busy cafe in West Jerusalem.
An Israeli government spokesman said the attack, and an earlier gun attack which killed two Israelis in Netanya, were intended to sabotage the visit later this week of US special envoy Anthony Zinni.
Early on Sunday, Israeli helicopter gunships blasted the Gaza compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, completely destroying it, according to Palestinian officials.
Mr Arafat was not in Gaza at the time; he has been confined to Ramallah for the past three months by Israeli forces.
Earlier in the night Israeli helicopters fired on a refugee camp near Ramallah killing one man.
10 March, 2002, BBC
ETA violence prompts security review
Basque security chiefs in northern Spain are meeting in the regional capital, Vitoria, to review the current security arrangements for local politicians amid a continuing threat of attack by the Basque separatist group, ETA.
The Spanish Government has recommended that people in public life in the Basque region are escorted everywhere by bodyguards, but this has not stopped the shootings and bomb attacks which are a regular feature of political life in Spain.
The Basque Government has also invited representatives of all political parties and the interior ministry to the meeting in Vitoria. However, Herri Batasuna, the party closest to ETA, has said it will not be attending and the interior minister himself has also declined.
A week ago a Socialist deputy mayor and her bodyguard were injured in a bomb attack. The week before that a Socialist youth member survived a bomb planted in his car but lost a leg.
In some municipalities members of Spain's mainstream parties are too frightened to stand as candidates, giving Batasuna or the more moderate Basque nationalist parties an unfair advantage in the political process.
The Basque Interior Minister, Javier Balza, who is chairing the meeting, has asked the central government to provide 200 extra officers for the Basque police force, a request which has so far been refused. He also wants Basque police officers to be allowed to take part in EU security meetings, which began after 11 September as part of the global war on terrorism.
7 March, 2002, BBC
Bomb attack was 'designed to kill'
A bomb which injured two teenagers at a horse racing event in south Armagh was "designed to maim or kill", the police have said.
The 16-year-old boys suffered slight injuries to their lower legs and hands in Saturday's blast, which is being blamed on dissident republican paramilitaries. The police said the device appeared to have been aimed at members of the security forces.
It had been hidden under a police cone which was being used to ease traffic congestion at the annual Farmacaffley point-to-point races.
3 March, 2002 , BBC
A man has been charged after a home-made incendiary device exploded in Bolton.
The device, believed to have been made from fireworks packed into a toilet ballcock, injured a passer-by as it blew up.
Steven Davies, from Breightmet, is charged with two counts of causing explosions with intent to endanger life, and one charge of damaging property.
3 March, 2002, BBC
Israel hits back after suicide bombing
Israel has bombed Palestinian targets in the West Bank after a suicide bomber killed nine Israelis in a religious neighbourhood of west Jerusalem.
The suicide attack came as ultra-Orthodox Jews were crowding the streets of Beit Israel district after observing the end of the Sabbath. The bomber is reported to have walked up to a group of women and children before triggering a massive explosion. The dead included two babies and a 10-year-old boy. A further 57 people were injured, six of them critically.
The blast occurred at around 1900 local time (1700 GMT) when a car burst into flames, leading police to believe initially it was a car bomb. One Israeli witness said he had spotted a man who looked like an Arab but was wearing a Jewish skullcap get out of a taxi just before the explosion.
The suicide bomber was named as 19-year-old Mohammed al-Chouhani, from the Deheishe refugee camp near Bethlehem.
3 March, 2002, BBC
Parcel plot work of a sick 'loner'
Police were yesterday hunting a 'maladjusted loner' whom they believe was responsible for sending parcels containing a toxic substance to Cherie Blair at Downing Street and to the assistant of a Liberal Democrat member of the Scottish Parliament.
But the MSP Mike Rumbles, who believes he and his assistant were targeted by the Scottish National Liberation Army because they are both English, said the group was 'extremely dangerous' and could no longer be treated as a joke.
The packages contained corrosive caustic soda disguised as aromatherapy oil. At least one was sent from Glasgow. In a telephone call to Scotland Yard on Friday afternoon, a man claiming to be from the SNLA said that 16 packages had been sent. Only two have been detected.
The Prime Minister's wife is thought to have been the target of the package sent to 10 Downing Street. It was detected at an off-site screening centre set up after 11 September. The other package arrived at the home of a female assistant to Rumbles, in Banochry, Aberdeenshire. He said he was 'extremely angry at this despicable act'.
Rumbles said he had been tipped off by a newspaper about the danger and managed to warn his assistant before she opened the package on Friday. Rumbles said: 'Although I speak with an English accent and I was born in the North- East of England, I have been an adopted Scot for many years. My children are Scottish, my wife's family are Scots and I am proud to represent West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine in the Scottish Parliament.'
Police said they believed the packages came from 'one disturbed individual working on his own'. The two padded envelopes found on Friday contained bottles labelled as eucalyptus. The liquid was actually sodium hydroxide, commonly known as caustic soda, which can cause permanent scarring to skin. Scotland Yard described the fake oil and instructions on how to use it as 'cynically dangerous'.
A police spokesman said: 'We are urging people who may receive a package containing a liquid substance through the post in suspicious circumstances to contact 999 immediately. We believe this is especially applicable to members of the political parties and their members of staff.'
It is still unclear whether the Scottish National Liberation Army was responsible. It was formed in 1980 by a Glasgow-born former soldier, Adam Busby, 53, who declared war on 'mass English immigration'. Busby now lives in Dublin, where he has formed the Scottish Separatist Group to campaign for an independent Scotland outside the European Union. In an interview last year he claimed he had no longer any connection with the SNLA. In the 1980s the SNLA made a series of hoax bomb calls and death threats to the royal family, but struggled to be taken seriously.
Dubbed the 'tartan terrorists', the group was linked to letters sent last summer to St Andrews University, where Prince William is studying, which falsely claimed to contain anthrax.
The Scottish National Party, which has no links with the SNLA, condemned the sending of the packages. Party leader John Swinney, speaking in Perth, said: 'Every right-thinking person will unreservedly condemn this pathetic attack.'
Sunday March 3, 2002
A 46-year-old man has been charged after a home-made incendiary device exploded in Bolton. The device, believed to have been made from fireworks packed into a toilet ballcock, injured a passer-by as it blew up.
Steven Davies, from Breightmet, is charged with two counts of causing explosions with intent to endanger life, and one charge of damaging property. Army bomb disposal experts had to be called in to carry out several controlled explosion in the area around St. George's Street on Friday.
A police spokesman said: "Bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion on a device which turned out not to be suspicious."
3 March, 2002 , BBC
Ten die as suicide bomber strikes in Jerusalem crowd
At least 10 people, including two infants, were killed last night and 57 injured, four of them seriously, when a suicide bomber threw himself into a crowd in an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Jerusalem after Sabbath prayers.
The blast took place at about 7.15pm local time, when the streets were crowded with worshipers leaving the synagogues. The bomber had "got to the centre of the neighbourhood, approached a group of people [and detonated] a large explosive on his body," said Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy.
Among the dead in the attack, which dealt another serious blow to international peace efforts, was a one-year-old girl and several other children. The police said that it was unclear exactly how many of the victims were children.
The suicide bomber was named as Mohammed Ahmed Alsha'ani, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who was in his late teens and came from a refugee camp in Bethlehem.
Police thought that the blast in the Beit Israel neighbourhood was caused by a booby-trapped car but later revised that view, saying it was caused by a suicide bomber positioned near a car. The bomb engulfed a car in a ball of flame and blew the tiles off roofs along the street. The explosion ripped through the narrow Haim Ozer Street as hundreds of worshippers were leaving synagogues. People ran screaming from the scene of the blast, which could be heard more than a mile away.
The Israelis called the bombing "murder for murder's sake" and pinned the blame on Yasser Arafat, saying that he had given gunmen and bombers a green light to kill its citizens in the 17-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Dpre Gold, an Israeli government spokesman, said: "This has nothing to do with warfare, this has nothing to do with national liberation, this has to do with the murder of innocent Jews. The state of Israel knows how to defend the people of Israel, and will do so."
The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack but said responsibility lay with what it called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "policy of aggression against the Palestinian people". The United States called it a "terrorist outrage" and urged Arafat to do more to prevent such attacks.
2 March 2002, BBC
Loyalists leave hoax device at house
A crude device taped to the front door of a house in north Belfast has been declared a hoax by Army bomb experts.
It was found at the house on Cranbrook Court, just off the Ardoyne Road on Friday. A 12-year-old girl living there noticed a coffee jar with wires hanging from it taped to the front door of the house. She alerted her parents, who moved the family to the back of the house and contacted the police.
Loyalists using the cover name the Red Hand Defenders contacted a Belfast newsroom after it was found to say they had left a bomb at the house. The loyalist paramilitary organisations, the Ulster Defence Association and Loyalist Volunteer Force, have both used Red Hand Defenders as a cover name.
Several houses in the street were evacuated but Army technical experts quickly established that the object was not a bomb.
Friday, 1 March, 2002
