(ProsperNews.net) – Islamic terrorists blew up a Catholic mass in the Philippines on December 3, killing four. Dozens were injured in the explosion in the city of Marawi, the largest Muslim city in the nation, on the first Sunday of Advent when Christians are preparing to mark the birth of Jesus.
Marawi police chief Allan Nobleza initially said the explosion was caused by a grenade or an improvised explosive device (IED) and may have been a revenge attack for the deaths of eleven Islamic militants killed by a Filipino airstrike on Mindanao. Since then, ISIS has claimed responsibility and said it was intended as an attack on “Christian disbelievers.” The terror group left a message on the social media platform Telegram boasting about the killings.
A Filipino military official said around 40 people were seriously injured in the attack that devastated an entire seating area in the makeshift church in a gym at Mindanao State University. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. condemned the terrorists and said they would “always be regarded as enemies to our society.”
State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller commented that the US is in close contact with authorities in the Catholic nation and “stands with the people of the Philippines in rejecting this act of violence.”
The terror attack happened just a day after an earthquake struck the same region, killing one and evacuating thousands. The powerful magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Saturday, December 2, followed by four aftershocks measuring 6.0. The earthquake prompted tsunami warnings throughout the Pacific region, including in Japan, where authorities issued evacuation warnings in the coastal area of Okinawa.
Subsequent reports from international agencies, including the US Tsunami Warning System, suggested the tsunami threat had passed, but countries in the area remained on alert.
The tsunami of December 26, 2004, that hit the coastlines of countries in Southeast Asia, killed more than 225,000 people and left entire communities devastated. The countries most affected were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, and Thailand.
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