Despite a crackdown by the military and police, Muslim militants maintain a presence in General Santos, 620 miles south of Manila. The police reported today that an explosion in an outdoor market packed with Christmas shoppers in this port city killed 11 people and injured nearly 30. Three people were killed instantly, eight others died later in hospitals. A homemade bomb or a grenade concealed in a box caused the blast. No one claimed responsibility, said Army Colonel Medardo Geslani, who heads a regional anti-terrorism force.

The Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic organization on Washington's list of terror groups, claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed more than 100 people on a ferry leaving Manila in February 2004.

Note: It is disquieting that Muslim terrorism has been spreading in the Philippines side by side with large-scale building of mosques and massive conversions of Roman Catholic Filipinos to Islam, financed by monies from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Indeed, such converts often participate in terrorist attacks. Unless the Arroyo Government, possibly with help from the United States, takes drastic steps to prevent the inflow of these funds, there is little hope of checking this process.