Blasts hit southern Philippines ahead of Christmas
January 3, 2020 · By Joe Torres, Mindanao for www.ucanews.org
Soldiers stand guard outside a church in Davao City in the Philippines in this file photo. A grenade blast outside the Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral in Cotabato City on Dec. 21 injured at least 12 people. (Photo by Manman Dejeto/AFP)
A grenade blast outside the Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippine city of Cotabato on Dec. 22 wounded at least 12 people, including eight soldiers on patrol.Another explosion hurt at least six others in the nearby town of Libungan, also in Cotabato province, while two other people were wounded in another blast in Upi town.
No groups have yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, which happened ahead of Christmas in the predominantly Christian country.
The attack outside Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral took place at around 6pm local time while Sunday Mass was being held, resulting in panic among mass goers, said Father Zaldy Robles, a local priest.
“The mass goers rushed out of the church,” said the priest. A later Mass was cancelled due to security concerns.
The grenade was thrown at the gate of a radio station run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation beside the cathedral, the seat of Cotabato Archdiocese.
The military blamed the extremist group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters for the attack.
In a statement, Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi of Cotabato City called on residents “to rise above these acts of terrorism.”
“We are resilient and strong enough to fight against these people whose mission is to disrupt our peace,” the mayor said.
The blasts in Cotabato occurred as authorities were preparing for the lifting of martial law in the region by end of the month.
“It was a grenade attack. The target was our troops,” said Major Arvin Encinas, spokesman of the military’s Western Mindanao Command.
The military official said the cathedral grenade exploded while soldiers in a military truck were passing by.
“We could not discount [the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters’] involvement. They are the only group we are confronting,” said Encinas.
In Libungan town, a homemade bomb went off in the town center minutes after the Cotabato City explosion.
In December last year, two people were killed and 35 wounded in Cotabato after a bomb went off outside a shopping mall.
That incident was blamed on fighters linked to the so-called Islamic State, which has reportedly stepped up a strategy of absorbing existing insurgent groups around the world.
In May 2017, gunmen who pledged allegiance to Islamic State seized the city of Marawi, also in Mindanao, sparking a five-month siege that left more than 1,000 people dead.
