In this handout picture supplied by the Provincial Government of Lanao Del Sur – Public Information Office, legislation enforcers conduct an investigation on the website of an explosion in Marawi metropolis, southern Philippines on Sunday Dec. 3, 2023.

Provincial Government of Lanao Del Sur – Public Information Office/AP

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Provincial Government of Lanao Del Sur – Public Information Office/AP

In this handout picture supplied by the Provincial Government of Lanao Del Sur – Public Information Office, legislation enforcers conduct an investigation on the website of an explosion in Marawi metropolis, southern Philippines on Sunday Dec. 3, 2023.

Provincial Government of Lanao Del Sur – Public Information Office/AP

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine president blamed “foreign terrorists” for a bomb blast that killed 4 folks Sunday, wounded dozens of different Catholic worshippers within the south and sparked a safety alarm, together with within the capital, Manila, the place state forces have been placed on alert.

The suspected bomb, which the police stated was made out of a mortar spherical, went off and hit college students and lecturers who attended a Mass in a gymnasium at Mindanao State University in southern Marawi metropolis, Taha Mandangan, the safety chief of the state-run campus, instructed The Associated Press by phone.

Dozens of scholars and lecturers dashed out of the gymnasium and the wounded have been taken to hospitals.

Regional army commander Maj. Gen. Gabriel Viray III stated 4 folks have been killed by the explosion, together with three girls, and 50 others have been introduced to 2 hospitals for remedy.

Six of the wounded have been preventing for his or her lives in a hospital, stated Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. of the Islamic province of Lanao del Sur, which has Marawi as its capital.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the senseless and most heinous acts perpetrated by foreign terrorists upon the Mindanao State University,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. stated in a press release. “Extremists who wield violence against the innocent will always be regarded as enemies to our society.”

Marcos didn’t clarify why he instantly blamed overseas militants for the high-profile bombing. Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. later instructed a information convention with out elaborating there was a powerful indication of a “foreign element” within the bombing.

Military chief of employees Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. stated the bomb assault might be retaliation by Muslim militants for a sequence of battle setbacks.

“We are looking at possible angles,” Brawner stated. “It could be a retaliatory attack,”

He cited the killing of 11 suspected Islamic militants in a army offensive backed by airstrikes and artillery fires on Friday close to Datu Hoffer city in southern Maguindanao province.

Regional police director Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza stated the slain militants belonged to Dawlah Islamiyah, an armed group that had aligned itself with the Islamic State group and nonetheless has a presence in Lanao del Sur province.

Mosque-studded Marawi metropolis got here below assault from overseas and native Islamic militants who had related themselves with the Islamic State group in 2017. The five-month siege left greater than 1,100 useless, principally militants, earlier than it was quelled by Philippine forces backed by airstrikes and surveillance planes deployed by the United States and Australia.

Army troops and police cordoned off the college shortly after the bombing and commenced an investigation, checking safety cameras for any indication of who might have been liable for the assault. Security checkpoints have been arrange across the metropolis.

Police Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Peralta instructed reporters that army and police bomb consultants discovered fragments of a 60mm mortar spherical within the scene of the assault.

Such explosives common from mortar rounds had been utilized in previous assaults by Islamic militants within the nation’s south.

The lethal blast set off a safety alarm past Marawi metropolis because the Christmas season ushered in a interval of journey, buying sprees and visitors jams throughout the nation. Police and different state forces have been put below “heightened alert” in metropolitan Manila, safety officers stated.

The Philippine coast guard stated it ordered all its personnel to accentuate intelligence gathering, stricter inspections of passenger ferries and the deployment of bomb-sniffing canines and sea marshals.

“Amid this barbaric act, best public service must prevail,” coast guard chief Admiral Ronnie Gavan stated.

The southern Philippines is the homeland of minority Muslims within the predominantly Roman Catholic nation and the scene of decades-old separatist rebellions.

The largest armed rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, signed a 2014 peace cope with the federal government, significantly easing many years of preventing. But quite a lot of smaller armed teams rejected the peace pact and press on with bombings and different assaults whereas evading authorities offensives.