KUWAIT: 'Your embassy will explode in thirty minutes.' That was the alarming SMS message received by the Philippine embassy hotline yesterday which they instantly relayed to local authorities here. Police and bomb squad officers, accompanied by specially trained sniffer dogs, were quickly at the scene, along with firefighters and paramedics. Their first act was to vacate the embassy of all staff and visitors there, including the 200 runaway housemaids currently being housed there were moved out while the search was underway. The streets around the embassy were also cordoned off and police prevented anyone from approaching the surrounding area.

After an intensive two-hour search, however, no bomb or any suspicious package was located; leading police to surmise that the message had been a cruel 'prank.' "There was no bomb found! It turned out to be a hoax," said Josephus Jimenez, the Philippine Labor Attach� in Kuwait. "We at the Philippine Embassy and the POLO office condemn the bomb hoax. We are happy that there was nothing, but it created chaos and confusion for all of us here, and most of all it disrupts our regular functions and activities.


Speaking to the Kuwait Times yesterday at his office after the short- lived scare, Jimenez called upon Filipinos in Kuwait not to panic as the Philippine and Kuwait governments are here to assist them in whatever situation they may face. "Any problem that may cause some discomfort to anybody will be addressed properly according to the procedures provided by the law," he stressed.
Jimenez asserted that the perpetrator of the bomb hoax message will be dealt with according to Kuwaiti law.

I am sure the perpetrator will be apprehended because the host government has the capability to trace the telephone line which was used to commit this crime," he said. "I call upon the [person who sent the SMS message] to come forward and if he has any problem or concern or such, maybe we could sit down and talk about it and address his concerns in the proper forum.

Authorities here suggested that yesterday's bomb hoax, the most recent in a string of such hoaxes, is most likely related to previous ones, as the telephone number used originated in the UK, as have others. The Ministry of Interior's security media department and the ministry's official spokesman, Colonel Mohammed Hashem Al-Sabr, stressed that the hoax calls are being strictly monitored, adding that the Kuwaiti authorities are coordinating closely with their counterparts elsewhere to eliminate this phenomenon, which he said is an alien one to Kuwaitis.

One Philippine Embassy official said yesterday that the latest hoax bomb threat could have come from a specific disgruntled white man who had called the embassy many times to enquire about the whereabouts of his Filipina wife and daughter.

Before we received the SMS message, informing us about the bomb, we got a call from certain Caucasian guy asking about the whereabouts of his Filipina wife and daughter. We told him that we didn't have them at the embassy. He called [the embassy hotline] many times. Then, at 10:45am, we get a message stating 'Your embassy will explode in thirty minutes'. We believed it came from him, but we don't really know if the roaming number identified as being from London could be him as well. - Kuwait Times