Summary Police cordoned off the area and defused the powerful bomb.
MANILA (AP) - Philippine police said Monday that they foiled what could have been a "disastrous" bombing of a gas station in the country s volatile south.
An attendant found a homemade bomb in a plastic bag that was placed near a gas pump at a station in General Santos city late Sunday, regional police chief Charles Calima Jr. said. The bomb was made from two mortar rounds and wired to a cellphone.
Police cordoned off the area and defused the powerful bomb, Calima said. CCTV security cameras indicated that the bomb was left by a man while his companion asked a cashier to change his money to smaller bills, apparently as a way to distract the attendants. The two men were believed to have fled later on motorcycles driven by two other men, Calima said.
With the bomb s discovery, police "foiled what could have been a very disastrous incident," a police statement said.
General Santos, a bustling port city about 1,030 kilometers (640 miles) southeast of Manila, has been targeted in the past by al-Qaida-linked militants and extortion gangs.
A series of deadly bomb attacks set off a security alarm in the south four months ago, including a July 26 blast at a crowded bar that killed eight people and wounded more than 40 others in Cagayan de Oro city. A little-known Muslim militant group called Khilafa Islamiyah Mindanao was blamed for the attack.
In August, a bomb rigged in a small van killed eight people and wounded dozens of others during rush hour in southern Cotabato city in an attack blamed on a Muslim rebel faction that opposes peace talks with the government.
