GENERAL SANTOS CITY—Security forces were ordered Friday to stay on high alert after threats of more bomb attacks in Mindanao, police said.

A New Year’s Eve grenade attack at a park here wounded 22 people, just a day after a similar incident at a police outpost left three injured.

As a result, extra personnel were deployed here, and particularly in parks and other popular public areas, said regional police commander Fidal Cimatu.

“We are on heightened alert because of some reports we are receiving that there will still be some bombings to be conducted in Mindanao,” he said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but intelligence officials say they suspect the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The group yesterday denied it was behind the series of bombings.

“It seems the police and the military have made it a standard operating procedure of blaming us for every bombing incident in Mindanao,” said Mohagher Iqbal, head of the MILF panel negotiating peace with the government.

Peace talks between the government and the MILF were suspended in August, when the rebels launched a spate of attacks across Mindanao that left scores dead and hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced.

On Tuesday, a suspected Muslim militant was killed when an improvised explosive device he was carrying exploded in the Mindanao town of Esperanza.

Police said they foiled what they said would have been a devastating bomb attack after disarming a powerful homemade explosive device at a bus depot in Zamboanga City. AFP with Jaime Pilapil