By Roy Ramos
ZAMBOANGA CITY
A woman was being held for questioning Saturday in connection with Friday's bomb attack in the Philippines' city of Zamboanga that killed two people and wounded 57 others.
Officials were tightlipped on the arrest of the suspect, but a police source told The Anadolu Agency that the woman was arrested Friday night in the nearby village of Cabatangan after investigators discovered that a car used in the attack came from her residence.
The source -- who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the case -- said investigators suspect the woman's husband carried out the attack that wrecked the Fantacy nightclub and shattered the windows and doors of the nearby bus terminal and several shops.
According to the source, the target of the explosion was not the club, but the crowded bus terminal where it was initially parked Thursday. Police, however, had ordered the driver to move the vehicle and it was instead parked outside the club across the highway.
Bystanders have said that the car initially started to burn, before exploding. Police called the fire department, but before they could respond, a powerful explosion rocked the area.
Among those killed were a motorized rickshaw driver who died in hospital two hours after the blast, and another man who also died several hours later.
Three hospitals treated 57 other people wounded in the explosion.
Zamboanga City Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco called on residents to remain calm but vigilant, telling reporters that the city would continue its fight against "lawlessness and terrorism" with the help of police and military authorities.
She added that she was not discounting the possibility that the attack was a "diversionary tactic by lawless groups."
Climaco-Salazar told the AA Friday that police and military were in the process of trying to determine the cause of the blast, but linked the explosion to the city presently holding 57 Abu Sayyaf members in its jails.
"Let us take note that this Abu Sayyaf group members that are here awaiting trial did not commit their atrocities in the city of Zamboanga and the trials are not held in the city," she said, and called on the government to remove the rebels.
Last Monday, officials foiled a plot to spring the men from the city jail with the seizure of three smuggled 45. caliber pistols.
"They are not our problem and yet they are our burden," she added. "We do not want a repeat of the siege of the city."
Zamboanga is a majority Christian city in the Philippines' Muslim south. The area has been wracked by violence for decades, and some rebel groups continue to fight for an independent Muslim autonomous region despite a peace deal signed last year between the government and the area's one-time largest rebel group -- The Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
In September 2013, nearly 200 people died and over 120,000 were left homeless in Zamboanga when the Moro National Liberation Front laid siege to the city to register their opposition to the deal.
The Abu Sayyaf has carried out a violent campaign for an independent Islamic province since 1991 and is notorious for beheading kidnap victims.
The Philippine government and the U.S. have offered bounties for key members of the al-Qaeda-linked organization.
