ZAMBOANGA CITY – The local government has prohibited residents here from carrying backpacks, water bottles and even using bull caps and hooded jackets and waistcoats during the New Year’s Eve countdown and fireworks display at an outdoor parking area.
Mayor John Dalipe has signed the order which also prohibits the use of drones during the event.
It was not the first time the local government imposed such prohibitions during important events, including religious festivals where even cellphone reception and service are cut off for fear terrorists may launch attacks using electronic signals to trigger explosions from improvised bombs.
It is only in Zamboanga such a strict order is imposed. Dalipe did not say whether there is a terror threat but this largely Catholic city had been attacked and bombed by Abu Sayyaf terrorists and Moro National Liberation Front rebels in the past.
Just early this month, pro-ISIS fighters from the Dawlah Islamiya bombed a Catholic mass inside the Mindanao State University stadium in Lanao del Sur’s Marawi City that killed at least four people and injured dozens more.
The bombing,
carried out by a pair of attackers, occurred only six years after Muslim
extremist groups Abu Sayyaf, Dawlah Islamiya, Maute, including foreign ISIS
fighters, occupied Marawi and battled security forces for five months from May
23 to October 23. (Mindanao Examiner)
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