Philippine police found and
defused two bombs in Manila railway stations today amid a heighened alert against the possible entry of al Qaeda members fleeing from Aghanistan, officials said.
The homemade bombs were the third and fourth recovered by police from various parts of the metropolis of 11 million people this week but security officials said none appeared to be the handiwork of extremist groups.
"Some of the evidence indicates support for that hypothesis," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told reporters, commenting on a police theory that the explosives were apparently not intended to kill but to scare people and send a political message.
The latest bombs were found during the early morning rush hour at the Ortigas Metro Rail Transit station, near a private school and a shopping mall, and at the Kamuning station in Quezon City suburb close to a public market, police said.
Metro Manila police chief Edgardo Aglipay said the bombs probably came from the same group that left two explosives in the Makati financial district on Monday, demanding separate federal states for the country's Christians and Muslims. Those bombs were also defused by the police.
The incidents coincided with stepped up security across Philippines cities to prevent the entry of members of Islamic militant Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network fleeing the US bombing of Afghanistan.
FBI Director Mr Robert Mueller, who visited Manila earlier this week, has said Southeast Asia was a potential sanctuary for the Islamic militants.