• About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • EEO PUBLIC FILE REPORT
  • FCC Public File
  • FCC Applications
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
WTMJ
  • Home
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Coronavirus
    • Featured Stories
    • Decision Wisconsin
    • Guest Editorials
  • Weather
    • Closings and Delays
    • Flight Status
    • Interactive Radar
    • Watches and Warnings
  • Traffic
    • Construction Updates
  • Sports
    • Green Bay Packers
      • Green & Gold Podcast
    • Milwaukee Brewers
      • Brewers Weekly Podcast
      • Brewers Extra Innings
      • First Pitch
    • Milwaukee Bucks
      • Bucks Talk
      • Bucks Weekly: The Podcast
    • NCAA
    • Extra Points
  • Shows
    • Wisconsin’s Morning News
    • Steve Scaffidi
    • Jeff Wagner
    • Wisconsin’s Afternoon News
      • The Beatles & More! An England Adventure with Sandy Maxx and Journeys Connect
      • Spectacular Scandinavia with John Mercure and Collette
    • WTMJ Nights
    • Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News
    • WTMJ Conversations
    • Reporter’s Notebook
    • Featured Shows
      • Accunet Mortgage & Realty Show
      • Creative Planning presents, Rethink Your Money with John Hagensen
      • Drake & Associates Retirement Ready Show
      • Every Day Health
      • Fix It Show
      • Hired! The GKB Recruitment Show
      • Money Talk, The Annex Wealth Management Show
  • Podcasts
    • WTMJ Conversations 2023: The Podcast
    • Wisconsin’s Morning News Podcast
    • The Steve Scaffidi Show
    • Jeff Wagner Podcast
    • Wisconsin’s Afternoon News Podcast
    • WTMJ Nights Podcast
    • Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News Podcast
    • The Truth on WTMJ: The Podcast
    • WTMJ Conversations Podcast
    • Milwaukee Brewers
      • First Pitch
      • Brewers Weekly Podcast
      • Brewers Extra Innings Podcast
    • Milwaukee Bucks
      • Bucks Weekly: The Podcast
      • Bucks Talk: The Podcast
    • Green Bay Packers
      • Green & Gold Podcast
    • Featured Show Podcasts
      • The Fix-It Show Podcast
      • Money Talk, The Annex Wealth Management Show Podcast
      • The Accunet Mortgage and Realty Show Podcast
      • The Fox World Travel Show Podcast
      • Creative Planning presents, Rethink Your Money with John Hagensen
  • Features
    • WTMJ Cares: Polar Plunge with Vitrano for Special Olympics
    • The Beatles & More! An England Adventure with Sandy Maxx and Journeys Connect
    • Spectacular Scandinavia with John Mercure and Collette
    • Wagner’s Home Improvement Showcase
    • 2023 Greater Milwaukee International Car & Truck Show
    • Annex Wealth Management Webinar
    • Every Day Health
  • Contests
LISTEN LIVE
No Result
View All Result
WTMJ
  • Home
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Coronavirus
    • Featured Stories
    • Decision Wisconsin
    • Guest Editorials
  • Weather
    • Closings and Delays
    • Flight Status
    • Interactive Radar
    • Watches and Warnings
  • Traffic
    • Construction Updates
  • Sports
    • Green Bay Packers
      • Green & Gold Podcast
    • Milwaukee Brewers
      • Brewers Weekly Podcast
      • Brewers Extra Innings
      • First Pitch
    • Milwaukee Bucks
      • Bucks Talk
      • Bucks Weekly: The Podcast
    • NCAA
    • Extra Points
  • Shows
    • Wisconsin’s Morning News
    • Steve Scaffidi
    • Jeff Wagner
    • Wisconsin’s Afternoon News
      • The Beatles & More! An England Adventure with Sandy Maxx and Journeys Connect
      • Spectacular Scandinavia with John Mercure and Collette
    • WTMJ Nights
    • Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News
    • WTMJ Conversations
    • Reporter’s Notebook
    • Featured Shows
      • Accunet Mortgage & Realty Show
      • Creative Planning presents, Rethink Your Money with John Hagensen
      • Drake & Associates Retirement Ready Show
      • Every Day Health
      • Fix It Show
      • Hired! The GKB Recruitment Show
      • Money Talk, The Annex Wealth Management Show
  • Podcasts
    • WTMJ Conversations 2023: The Podcast
    • Wisconsin’s Morning News Podcast
    • The Steve Scaffidi Show
    • Jeff Wagner Podcast
    • Wisconsin’s Afternoon News Podcast
    • WTMJ Nights Podcast
    • Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News Podcast
    • The Truth on WTMJ: The Podcast
    • WTMJ Conversations Podcast
    • Milwaukee Brewers
      • First Pitch
      • Brewers Weekly Podcast
      • Brewers Extra Innings Podcast
    • Milwaukee Bucks
      • Bucks Weekly: The Podcast
      • Bucks Talk: The Podcast
    • Green Bay Packers
      • Green & Gold Podcast
    • Featured Show Podcasts
      • The Fix-It Show Podcast
      • Money Talk, The Annex Wealth Management Show Podcast
      • The Accunet Mortgage and Realty Show Podcast
      • The Fox World Travel Show Podcast
      • Creative Planning presents, Rethink Your Money with John Hagensen
  • Features
    • WTMJ Cares: Polar Plunge with Vitrano for Special Olympics
    • The Beatles & More! An England Adventure with Sandy Maxx and Journeys Connect
    • Spectacular Scandinavia with John Mercure and Collette
    • Wagner’s Home Improvement Showcase
    • 2023 Greater Milwaukee International Car & Truck Show
    • Annex Wealth Management Webinar
    • Every Day Health
  • Contests
LISTEN LIVE
No Result
View All Result
WTMJ
No Result
View All Result

Bombs kill 20 at mass in Philippine cathedral

WTMJ News by WTMJ News
January 27, 2019
in News
Bombs kill 20 at mass in Philippine cathedral
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterEmail

JOLO, Philippines (AP) — Two bombs minutes apart tore through a Roman Catholic cathedral on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are active, killing at least 20 people and wounding 111 others during a Sunday Mass, officials said.

Witnesses said the first blast inside the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital sent churchgoers, some of them wounded, to stampede out of the main door. Army troops and police posted outside were rushing in when the second bomb went off about one minute later near the main entrance, causing more deaths and injuries. The military was checking a report that the second explosive device may have been attached to a parked motorcycle.

The initial explosion scattered the wooden pews inside the main hall and blasted window glass panels, and the second bomb hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, witnesses said. Cellphone signal was cut off in the first hours after the attack. The witnesses who spoke to The Associated Press refused to give their names or were busy at the scene of the blasts.

Police said at least 20 people died and 111 were wounded, correcting an earlier toll due to double counting. The fatalities included 15 civilians and five troops. Among the wounded were 17 troops, two police, two coast guard and 90 civilians.

Troops in armored carriers sealed off the main road leading to the church while vehicles transported the dead and wounded to the town hospital. Some casualties were evacuated by air to nearby Zamboanga city.

“I have directed our troops to heighten their alert level, secure all places of worships and public places at once, and initiate pro-active security measures to thwart hostile plans,” said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in a statement.

“We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy,” the office of President Rodrigo Duterte said in Manila.

It said that “the enemies of the state boldly challenged the government’s capability to secure the safety of citizens in that region. The (Armed Forces of the Philippines) will rise to the challenge and crush these godless criminals.”

Jolo island has long been troubled by the presence of Abu Sayyaf militants, who are blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization because of years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. A Catholic bishop, Benjamin de Jesus, was gunned down by suspected militants outside the cathedral in 1997.

No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack.

It came nearly a week after minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most of the Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that’s opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that not part of any peace process.

Western governments have welcomed the autonomy pact. They worry that small numbers of Islamic State-linked militants from the Middle East and Southeast Asia could forge an alliance with Filipino insurgents and turn the south into a breeding ground for extremists.

“This bomb attack was done in a place of peace and worship, and it comes at a time when we are preparing for another stage of the peace process in Mindanao,” said Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. “Human lives are irreplaceable,” he added, calling on Jolo residents to cooperate with authorities to find the perpetrators of this “atrocity.”

Security officials were looking “at different threat groups and they still can’t say if this has something to do with the just concluded plebiscite,” Oscar Albayalde, the national police chief, told ABS-CBN TV network. Hermogenes Esperon, the national security adviser, said that the new autonomous region, called Bangsamoro, “signifies the end of war for secession. It stands for peace in Mindanao.”

Aside from the small but brutal Abu Sayyaf group, other militant groups in Sulu include a small band of young jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group, which has also carried out assaults, including ransom kidnappings and beheadings.

Abu Sayyaf militants are still holding at least five hostages — a Dutch national, two Malaysians, an Indonesian and a Filipino — in their jungle bases mostly near Sulu’s Patikul town, not far from Jolo.

Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, including those in Jolo, a poverty-wracked island of more than 700,000 people. A few thousand Catholics live mostly in the capital of Jolo.

There have been speculations that the bombings may be a diversionary move by Muslim militants after troops recently carried out an offensive that killed a number of IS-linked extremists in an encampment in the hinterlands of Lanao del Sur province, also in the south. The area is near Marawi, a Muslim city that was besieged for five months by hundreds of IS-aligned militants, including foreign fighters, in 2017. Troops quelled the insurrection, which left more 1,100 mostly militants dead and the heartland of the mosque-studded city in ruins.

Duterte declared martial law in the entire southern third of the country to deal with the Marawi siege, his worst security crisis. His martial law declaration has been extended to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents but bombings and other attacks have continued.

Previous Post

Money Talk 1-26-19

Next Post

As it happened: Brewers On Deck 2019

WTMJ News

WTMJ News

Stay Connected

  • 22.3k Followers
  • 1k Follower
  • 679 Subscribers

Most Popular

Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

NATO to hold Ukraine meeting despite Hungary’s objections

March 21, 2023
Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

Putin hosts Xi in the Kremlin with imperial palace pageantry

March 21, 2023
Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

French protests drag on after Macron’s pension plan push

March 21, 2023
Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

US home sales surged in February as mortgage rates dipped

March 21, 2023
Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

Kenya police say 1 killed in opposition-led protests

March 21, 2023
WTMJ

For more than 90 years, WTMJ-AM has been "Wisconsin's Radio Station".

Follow Us

Home

News

Weather

Traffic

Sports

Shows

Podcasts

Features

Careers

Contests

Recent News

Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

NATO to hold Ukraine meeting despite Hungary’s objections

March 21, 2023
Reporter’s Notebook for 3/6/21

Putin hosts Xi in the Kremlin with imperial palace pageantry

March 21, 2023
  • Home
  • News
  • Weather
  • Traffic
  • Sports
  • Shows
  • Podcasts
  • Features
  • Contests

© 2022 Good Karma Brands, LLC.

  • LISTEN LIVE
  • Home
  • News
    • News
    • Local News
    • Coronavirus
    • Decision Wisconsin
  • Weather
    • Weather
    • Watches and Warnings
    • Closings and Delays
    • Flight Status
  • Traffic
  • Construction Updates
  • Sports
    • Sports
    • Green Bay Packers
    • Milwaukee Brewers
    • Milwaukee Bucks
  • Shows
    • Shows
    • Wisconsin’s Morning News
    • Steve Scaffidi
    • Jeff Wagner
    • Wisconsin’s Afternoon News
      • Spectacular Scandinavia with John Mercure and Collette
    • WTMJ Nights
    • WTMJ Conversations
    • Featured Shows
  • Podcasts
  • Features
    • Features
    • Good Karma Give Back
    • WTMJ Roundtable
  • Contests
  • Alexa
No Result
View All Result

© 2022 Good Karma Brands, LLC.