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SNIPPET: "ZAMBOANGA CITY (2nd update, 1:56 p.m.) -- A powerful blast killed at least 3 people and wounded 27 others in a budget hotel packed with wedding guests in the southern Philippines, officials said Monday. The explosion, suspected to have been caused by a bomb, ignited a fire that gutted the two-story Atilano Pension House in downtown Zamboanga city late Sunday." SNIPPET: "Zamboanga city, a predominantly Christian trading hub 540 miles (860 kilometers) south of Manila, is located in a volatile region long troubled by a decades-long Muslim insurgency, extortion gangs and kidnap for ransom syndicates."

Featured Term (selected at random):SHRINE AT ZAMBOANGA A center of Marian devotion on Mindanao, a souther island of the Philippines. Our Lady's white shrine was part of the fortress wall of the town. Christians would come to pray at this shrine to invoke Mary's help to subdue the fierce hatred of the Moslem Moros who lived near Zamboanga. These natives sent each year a chosen Moro into the Christian crowd that came to celebrate their holy day near the shrine, commissioning him to kill as many Christians as he could, being ready to die himself as a result of his...

Filipino Militants Behead Kidnapped Farmer: Police By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 17, 2009 ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine police recovered the severed head of a farm owner kidnapped by Muslim militants and authorities said Monday he was likely beheaded because his family failed to pay ransom. Doroteo Gonzales, 61, was snatched by gunmen April 25 from his house in southern Zamboanga city and brought to nearby Basilan Island, where al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels are holding at least five other people in a surge of ransom kidnappings. The gunmen were believed to have links to the Abu Sayyaf, and Gonzales...

TAGBILARAN CITY—Police on Wednesday arrested a suspected Abu Sayyaf bomber on a ferry in Cebu on his way to Metro Manila with “enough explosives to kill hundreds of people,” an official said yesterday. Police arrested the man a day before President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo arrived in Bohol Thursday for the first Local Peace and Security Assembly. National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales described him as a Muslim in his early 20s. “I cannot divulge the name yet because the investigation is still ongoing,” Gonzales said. “We suspect that he is a member of the Abu Sayyaf and he was on his...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Gunmen abducted an Italian Roman Catholic priest who was on his way to a remote village to celebrate Sunday Mass in the southern Philippines, police said. Giancarlo Bossi, 57, was riding his motorcycle in Zamboanga Sibugay province's Payao township, about 500 miles south of Manila, when about 10 armed men blocked his path then seized him, said Senior Superintendent Francisco Cristobal, the provincial police chief. Cristobal said he suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels who operate in Zamboanga Sibugay, despite a cease-fire agreement with the government. He did not elaborate, but said that al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf...

ZAMBOANGA -- Government troops have arrested an alleged Abu Sayyaf leader linked to the abduction of three American tourists in the southern Philippines, the military said Thursday. Usman Lijal and a bodyguard were detained in a raid of his hideout at a Muslim community on the outskirts of this southern city late Wednesday, said Major General Trifonio Salazar, head of the Army's First Infantry Division. The raiders also seized weapons from the house, where at least one other suspect escaped, the general told reporters. "We finally got him," Salazar said. "It's the result of a long surveillance operation that...

A homemade bomb exploded last night near a Roman Catholic church in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, killing one person and injuring 12, police said. The bomb attack in Zamboanga came after twin bombings tore through two department stores. Those blasts killed seven people and injured more than 150 last Thursday. Police said the bomb was apparently attached to an abandoned bicycle or left near the bike close to Fort Pilar, a century-old shrine and church full of Filipino Catholics. Although the church was packed with worshippers, the crowd was not as large as in past Sundays because of...