Philippines Church Bomb Blast Kills Five
July 5, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Islamist militants have been blamed for a bomb blast in the Philippines today which killed at least five people and wounded dozens more.
The bomb exploded outside the Immaculate Conception cathedral in Cotabato city, 545 miles (880 kilometers) south of Manila, as church-goers celebrated Mass.
A woman selling roast pork was killed on the spot while four others, including a soldier and three-year-old boy, died in a nearby hospital. Among the wounded were five soldiers who were passing the cathedral in an army van when the device, fashioned from a mortar round, exploded said army spokesman Colonel Jonathan Ponce.
“This is the handiwork of the rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),” Colonel Ponce told reporters, referring to the Muslim organisation which has waged a decades long battle for self rule in the southern island of Mindanao.
