Manila // Two explosions in the Philippine capital on Saturday night killed two people and injured six others.
The blasts came just more than a week after another explosion in the same area.
An initial blast occurred around 6pm local time on Saturday near a mosque in Quiapo, one of the older parts of Manila where there are big slums, city police chief Oscar Albayalde said.
The explosion killed two and injured four others, he said. A second blast occurred in the same area around 8.30pm.
Two policemen who were inspecting the area after the first blast were injured by the second explosion, Mr Albayalde said.
The blasts occurred along a narrow street crammed with stalls selling clothes and homeware.
They were just outside an Islamic community centre and about a hundred metres from the Quiapo Golden Mosque.
The first blast damaged part of the Islamic centre and shattered windows in nearby buildings.
“It was very powerful,” said Omar Yahya, 22, who was at the Islamic centre when the first explosion occurred. “Windows were broken and the wooden part of the building collapsed”.
Police chief Albayalde said the first blast appeared to have come from a package that was being delivered by a man on a motorcycle.
“The man on the motorcycle who delivered the package was killed. The other killed was the person who received the package,” he said.
Mr Albayalde said there was no signs that the blasts were terrorist attacks.
“We do not want to speculate but it’s possible this is a gang war,” he said. “We do not see any indication that this is a terror attack.”
The other explosion in Quiapo just over a week ago, which occurred as Southeast Asian leaders were meeting for a summit a few kilometres away, injured 14 people.
ISIL said it had carried out the April 28 explosion, but police insisted it was not a terrorist attack, nor was it related in any way to the gathering of political leaders.
Police said the April explosion involved a home-made pipe bomb and was carried out by people involved in a private grievance. They said one person had been arrested over that attack.
Militants who have pledged allegiance to ISIL are based in the southern Philippines. The Abu Sayyaf group, which is most infamous for kidnapping foreigners and killing them if ransoms are not paid, was blamed for the bombing of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that killed more than 116 people.
*Agence France-Presse
