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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 ravaged densely populated spaces on an island in the southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 14 other people and injuring 75 others in a well-known stronghold of the extremist group 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.
According to police and army reports, infantry and civilian soldiers were immediately killed in the first explosion, which occurred while a corps of army workers helping the local municipal government exhaust Covid-19’s humanitarian efforts.
Soon after, a momentary explosion, caused by a suicide bomber, said one official, struck near The Cathedral of Notre Dame del Mount Carmel. Earlier last year, a suicide bombing 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 split 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 the first bomb was placed on a motorcycle that he had left through his driver. After exploding, he said, “a female suicide bomber blew himself up while a soldier prevented him from entering the cordoned off area.”
He said the identity and nationality of the suicide bomber were still confirmed. Last year’s attack was also carried out through suicide bombers, an Indonesian couple.
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 some 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 men they described as 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.
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