‘Foreign Terrorists’ Are Behind Bombing That Killed Catholic Worshippers, Philippines President Says

The president of the Philippines blamed foreign terrorists for a bombing that killed four people and injured dozens of others at a church Sunday. 

The bomb was reportedly made from a mortar round that went off, striking students and teachers who attended a Catholic Mass in a gymnasium at Mindanao State University in southern Marawai City, campus security chief Taha Mandangan told the Associated Press. 

"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. said in a statement following the bombing. "Extremists who wield violence against the innocent will always be regarded as enemies to our society."

Marcos failed to cite his reasoning for immediately blaming foreign militants for the attack, but Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said that there was a “foreign element” in the bombing at a news conference. 

Military chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said in the news conference that the bomb attack could likely be a move of retaliation by Muslim militants.

"We are looking at possible angles," Brawner said in the conference. "It could be a retaliatory attack,"

Brawner was referring to the murder of 11 suspected Islamic militants as part of a military offensive involving airstrikes and artillery fires on Friday in a southern Maguindanao province, according to the AP. 

Pope Francis posted a message on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, offering prayers for the victims.

Sunday morning's attack left four people dead including three women, regional military commander Maj. Gen. Gabriel Viray told the AP. Fifty other people were brought to two hospitals for treatment and six of the wounded are in critical condition fighting for their lives.