Advertising
Supported by
Among the dead were soldiers and civilians. The explosions occurred in a city square and near a cathedral attacked by a suicide bombing last year.
By Jason Gutierrez
MANILA – Two heavy explosions fired through two suicide bombers devastated densely populated spaces on an island in the southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 14 other people and injuring 75 others in a stronghold known to the extremist organization Abu Sayyaf.
“There was a loud explosion” around noon near the town square on Jolo Island, said Captain Rex Payot, spokesman for the joint police-military task force against terrorism.
Reports from the police and army indicated that infantry and civilian soldiers were immediately killed in the first explosion, which occurred while an army workers’ corps was helping the local municipal government exhaust Covid-19’s humanitarian efforts.
Soon after, a momentary explosion struck near the Notre Dame cathedral on Mount Carmel. Last year, a suicide bomber in the same cathedral killed at least 23 other people as the faithful piled up for Sunday Mass.
Mayor Kherkar Tan de Jolo said that in total at least seven soldiers, one policeman and six civilians were killed in Monday’s explosions. At least 21 soldiers, six officials and 48 civilians were also wounded.
No one took charge without delay of the explosions. But Jolo, in the Sulu archipelago in the far south of the country, has long been a busy territory and a hotbed of militant activities.
Abu Sayyaf, who has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organization, has been divided into several factions, one of which is led by Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, the identified leader of the Islamic State organization in the southern Philippines.
Sawadjaan, who took office in the Notre Dame del Monte Carmel suicide bombing last year, was also “very likely” monday’s attack, said an army spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Ronaldo Mateo. Colonel Mateo said that after the first bomb broke out, “a female suicide bomber blew himself up while a soldier prevented him from entering the cordoned-off area.”
Last year’s attack was also carried out through suicide bombers, an Indonesian couple.
Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana said Tuesday morning that the first explosion was first caused by a bomb placed on a motorcycle. But further research through munitions experts, CCTV footage and testimony indicated that it was caused by a suicide bomber, whose identity was unknown.
The moment of the explosion, he said, was triggered by a teenager. She claimed that the identity of the woman, a foreigner, had not been revealed while the investigation continued.
Lieutenant Sobejana, who once led the opposing forces in Jolo to Abu Sayyaf, called for the re-enposition of martial law on the island to violence and to return to normal. “Otherwise, it will be a repetitive thing, victimizing the inhabitants,” he said.
Mindanao’s Western Military Command said in an internal report noted through the New York Times that the first explosion occurred outdoors in the Food Plaza paradise in a town called The Walled City in downtown Jolo.
General Manuel Abu, leader of the police in bangsamoro Autonomous Region in the Mindanao Muslim region, which includes Jolo, said the first explosion probably intended to lure the government into the area.
“The moment the explosion occurred in the face of the first explosion,” he said. “Initially, we sent our bomb experts to investigate,” he said.
Jolo province data leader Sonny Abbing told a local radio station: “I approached the site when I heard a loud bang and saw the police and staff fall.”
The mayor of Jolo issued a closing order after the explosions. Philippine coastguards in southwest Mindanao, as well as in the Sulu, Tawi-tawi, Basilan and Zamboanga regions, were put on alert after the explosions, according to local reports.
This month, Philippine troops captured five suspected Abu Sayyaf militants running under the direction of bomb expert Mundi Sawadjaan in Jolo. He escaped, but army officers said they believed the organization was looking for imaginable targets.
“We’ve been chasing him since May,” said Major General Corleto Vinluan Jr. of Western Mindanao Command.
Hannah Beech contributed to the Bangkok report.
Advertising