Terrorists from the Islamic State have taken credit for Sunday’s devastating blast at a Catholic Mass in the Philippines, which left at least four people dead and fifty injured.
The attack took place in a university gymnasium in Marawi, a southern city under five months of siege by Islamist terrorists in 2017. The Islamic State group, which is powerful in the southern part of the nation, said via Telegram that one of its militants had detonated the bomb.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. denounced “the senseless and most heinous acts perpetrated by foreign terrorists” earlier on Sunday, prior to the Islamic State’s claim. Security in and around the nation’s capital, Manila, was bolstered by the military and police.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro stated at a press conference that law enforcement efforts to apprehend those responsible for the “terrorist activity” will “continue unabated”. Teodoro stated that there were “strong indications of a foreign element” in the bombing, declining to provide further details in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing inquiry.
According to senior police official Emmanuel Peralta, pieces of a 60-mm mortar were found at the location.
According to the military leader, a series of military operations against local pro-Islamic State militants in the southern Philippines culminated in the explosion in Marawi, the capital of Lanao del Sur province.
Attempting to establish an Islamic State “wilayat,” or governorate, across Southeast Asia, Maute, a group affiliated with the terrorist group Islamic State, took control of Marawi in May 2017.
More than a thousand people, including civilians, were slain in the ensuing five-month conflict between Islamist insurgents and Philippine soldiers.
