The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for a blast that killed four worshippers at a Catholic Mass on Sunday (Dec. 3) in an area of the Philippines that had become an autonomous Muslim region in an attempt to end such violence.
On the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao, the explosion at a gym where the Mass service took place at Mindanao State University in Marawi City also sent more than 40 people to the hospital for treatment of injuries, Lanao del Sur Province Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. told reporters. He said six of the wounded were fighting for their lives.
Besides the 40 that received hospital treatment, more than 10 others were treated for lesser injuries at the university infirmary, Adiong said.
In a post on the X social media site, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. condemned the attack, describing it as “senseless and most heinous, perpetrated by foreign terrorists.”
“Extremists who wield violence against the innocent will always be regarded as enemies to our society,” he wrote.
SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of extremist groups, cited a communique from ISIS that stated its fighters “detonated an explosive device on a large gathering of Christian disbelievers in Marawi City.” Officials reportedly said a grenade or improvised bomb likely caused the blast.
Marawi is capital of the Lanao del Sur Province, which is part of the administrative region of Bangsamoro, Muslim-ruled and officially known as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Confirmed in a Jan. 21, 2019 referendum, the BARMM was formed from a peace deal with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but two other Islamist extremist groups, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and Abu Sayyaf rebels, were excluded from the agreement.
Separatist groups in the region have made peace with the government, but small break-away groups continue to operate there, Qatar-based Aljazeera reported on Dec. 5.
The bombing may have come in retaliation for a series of Islamist rebel military losses, including the killing on Dec. 1 of 11 suspected Islamic militants in a government offensive in southern Maguindanao Province, said Military Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., according to a Fox News/AP report. The militants belonged to the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute group, which is affiliated with ISIS and operating in Lanao del Sur Province, according to the report.
ISIS-affiliated militants in 2017 laid siege to Marawi for five months, forcing more than 350,000 area residents to flee before central government forces liberated the city.
A grenade attack near a Catholic cathedral and radio station in Mindanao island’s city of Cotabato on Dec. 22, 2019 injured at least eight soldiers and six civilians. Local reports it could have been aimed at a military advance team for a presidential visit as much as at the Christian sites.
Police stated the grenade was thrown near the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, seat of the archdiocese of Cotabato, and the radio station owned by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
