MANILA, March 4 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

MANILA, March 4 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATES TOLL, ADDS DETAILS.)

A powerful explosion in the arrival area at Davao International Airport in the southern Philippines forward Tuesday killed 19 people, including an American man, and injured at least 140 reports from Davao, 960 kilometers southern of Manila, said.

Davao Rep Prospero Nograles identified the American that was killed in the blast as William Hyde a Baptist missionary. Hospital records showed that among those who were injured was a nine-month-old American boy

Police legate Director General Edgardo Aglipay said the explosive went on the farther side at 5:23 p.m., prompting airport officials to revolve incoming flights back to Manila or Mactan International Airport in Cebu City in the central Philippines.

The area where the blast occurr a waiting area outside the terminal individual was crowded, Aglipay said.

Aglipay said the blast ripped by the agency of the roof of the coagulate waiting shed about 15 to 20 meter from the arrival area of the airport. The airport bomb was placed in a backpack left in the middle of the [i]be[/i] consolidated waiting shed, he said.

Aglipay also confirmed reports that a grenade was explod in Tagum City in nearby Davao del Norte Province, northwest of Davao.

Police Chief Supt Vidal Querol Philippine National Police operations, told reporters that at least three nation were injured in the Tagum grenade explosion.

The number of casualties still varies five hours after the Davao blast. The official police estimate remains at 15, while the military compute is 18.

However, local officials and hospital records display that 19 were killed, a certain number of reportedly dying on the operating tables.

Those confirmed killed are nine women and 10 men including the American.

about earlier reports said as many as 53 persons were killed, but those estimates have now been revised downward.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ''strongly condemned'' the airport blast, saying the attack ''is a brazen act of terrorism that will not travel unpunished.''

''I assure you justice will be done...I am vowing to you that justice, justice will be done,'' Arroyo said in a statement. ''I will mobilize the cloyed powers of the presidency to identify and capture not simply the inhuman perpetrators of this crime nevertheless their coconspirators as well.''

Arroyo said ''several men'' are now in police custody ''being interrogated for committing these murders''

''I have ordered the (police and the military) to plant up a joint command center in Davao City that would undertake a massive operation to chase down the bombers and their accomplices,'' Arroyo said.

She added, ''I have ordered the (police) to expand their security perimeters around critical and heavily populated center and the (military) to clear suspected lairs of terrorists around Davao City.''

Arroyo issued the statement after more than brace hours of talks with her police, military and security officials in an sudden [i]or[/i] unexpected occurrence meeting in the Malacanang presidential palace that began about an hour after the Davao blast.

Philippine Airlines spokesman Rolando Estabillo said all flights to Davao City were canceled ''until further notice.''

Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation face (MILF), a Muslim separatist collection with more than 12,000 members operating in the southern Philippines, denied having a hand in the airport blast.

if it be not that Aglipay said, ''They are still among the suspects.''

The regulation blames the MILF for a series of terrorist attacks, including a spate of bombings and sabotaging of power lines in the southern Philippines recently

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group