According to the Filipino government, the Abu Sayyaf militant group was responsible for a bomb attack in Davao, the home city of newly-elected President Rodrigo Duterte.
At least 14 people were killed and other 60 wounded in the bomb attack at a market in the southern city of Davao, the government has said.
Rodrigo Duterte – who was in Davao at the time of the attack but was not near the market – has declared a “state of lawlessness” following the explosion.
This allows troops to be based in cities to assist the police.
National Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that Abu Sayyaf wanted to retaliate after suffering heavy casualties on its stronghold of Jolo island about 550 miles from Davao.
Photo EPA
“We have predicted this – and warned our troops accordingly,” Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement.
A presidential spokesman said investigators had found shrapnel from a mortar-based improvised explosive device (IED) at the scene.
The explosion took place in an area frequently visited by Rodrigo Duterte.
The president said the Philippines was going through “extraordinary times” which was why he had decided to allow the security forces to conduct searches previously done solely by the police.
In the aftermath of the explosion there were conflicting claims as to who may have carried it out.
Mindanao police director Manuel Gaerlan was reported by the Philippine Daily Inquirer as putting forward a theory that “disgruntled vendors” upset over the awarding of stalls in the market were responsible.
The government for their part initially said they were considering the possibility that drug syndicates were behind the blast before concluding that Abu Sayyaf were to blame.
A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf was reported to have claimed responsibility soon after the attack.
However, the Inquirer quoted a senior Abu Sayyaf leader as saying it was in fact carried out by “an allied group”.
The region has been under a heightened security alert in recent weeks because of a military offensive against Abu Sayyaf.
Davao is the biggest city in the southern Philippines and has a population of about two million people. It is about 1,000 miles from the capital Manila.
A bomb attack in Davao, the home city of Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, has killed at least 12 people.
At least 60 people more were wounded in the explosion at a packed market.
According to a presidential spokesman, investigators had found shrapnel from a mortar-based improvised explosive device (IED) at the scene.
Police in Manila are on high alert following the deadly blast.
The explosion took place outside the Marco Polo hotel in an area frequently visited by Rodrigo Duterte, who was in Davao at the time but was not hurt.
Footages released show broken glass and plastic chairs scattered at the scene, which has since been cordoned off by police bomb experts and investigators.
Davao Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, the president’s eldest son, issued a statement on Facebook in which he said it was too soon to determine who was behind the attack, but insisted that “authorities are on top of this incident”.
Regional police Chief Manuel Guerlan said a ring of checkpoints had been placed around the city’s exit points.
The region has been under a heightened security alert in recent weeks because of a military offensive against Abu Sayyaf, a jihadist group.
On August 29, at least 12 soldiers from the Philippines were killed during heavy fighting with militants in what was the deadliest day for Philippine troops since President Rodrigo Duterte was elected in May.
Rodrigo Duterte’s election has prompted a spike in drug-related killings, with more than 2,000 deaths since he took office on June 30, nearly half of them in police operations.
Senior ISIS member Abu Sayyaf and captured his wife in a rare US special forces ground raid in eastern Syria.
According to a US Department of Defense statement, Abu Sayyaf helped direct oil, gas and financial operations for the Islamic State, as well as holding a military role.
The statement said forces tried to capture Abu Sayyaf, but he was killed after engaging them.
It is the first time the US is known to have carried out a ground operation to attack ISIS within Syria.
The operation was authorized by President Barack Obama and was carried out by forces based in Iraq.
US officials said Abu Sayyaf was Tunisian, with one official telling CNN he was the chief financial officer “of all of [ISIS]” and that the US had seized “reams of data on how ISIS operates, communicates and earns its money”.
On Arabic social media, however, Abu Sayyaf was not being spoken of as a known public figure.
Oil and gas have been an important source of revenue for ISIS, which gained swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq last year.
On May 16, the group took control of the northern part of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, which it has been advancing on for three days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – a UK-based network that uses activists within Syria.
The US said the operation in Syria was conducted “with the full consent of Iraqi authorities”, though it did not inform the Syrian government in advance.
“We have warned [President Bashar al-Assad’s] regime not to interfere with our ongoing efforts against [ISIS] inside of Syria,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan, adding that “the Assad regime is not and cannot be a partner in the fight” against IS.
The Pentagon said Abu Sayyaf’s wife, Umm Sayyaf, is suspected of being an ISIS member and of being complicit in the enslavement of a young Yazidi woman who was rescued in the raid.
It said it believed at least 12 militants had been killed at the scene, that there was hand-to-hand fighting and that militants had tried to use women and children as shields.
Umm Sayyaf has been taken into military detention in Iraq.
The operation lasted for about 30 minutes around dawn in the residential quarters of the al-Omar oil field, which houses about 500 families of ISIS fighters.
In Iraq on Saturday, ISIS militants tightened their grip over the centre of the city of Ramadi but reportedly withdrew from a key government compound they had seized a day earlier.
Neither ISIS nor its supporters on social media were commenting publicly on the raid against Abu Sayyaf, with Twitter posts focusing instead on Ramadi.
The US has been carrying out air strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since August 2014. Shortly after they began, the Pentagon said there had been a failed raid in Syria to free American hostages – the only other ground operation inside the country it has acknowledged.
Australian Warren Rodwell, who was kidnapped 15 months ago by al-Qaeda-linked group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, has been released.
Warren Rodwell was freed on Saturday near Pagadian city in the southern Philippines, police said.
He was kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in 2011, and had last been shown alive in a video posted on social media websites in December.
Abu Sayyaf is considered the smallest and most radical of the extremist movements in the southern Philippines.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr welcomed the news, saying the release had been the result of a joint effort by authorities in both countries.
“The Philippines government had the lead role in this case and deserve congratulations for their tireless efforts on Mr. Rodwell’s behalf,” said Bob Carr.
Warren Rodwell was freed on Saturday near Pagadian city in the southern Philippines
Bob Carr added that Warren Rodwell was being moved to a safe location and that the focus now was on his recovery.
Warren Rodwell – who runs a shop with his wife in the Philippines’ seaside town of Ipil, close to Zamboanga in south-western Mindanao – was abducted in December 2011.
A number of foreigners have been kidnapped for ransom in the southern Philippines. The Australian government has a longstanding policy of refusing to pay ransom for its citizens.
Areas within the region are used as bases by Islamist militants and rebel groups.
Abu Sayyaf militants remain a security threat in the impoverished region, where minority Muslims have been fighting for self-rule for decades.
The main Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, last year signed a peace accord with the government in exchange for broad autonomy.
But Abu Sayyaf were among the rebel groups who refused to sign up to the peace deal.
Abu Sayyaf Islamist militants in the Philippines have released two Filipino members of a TV crew, who were kidnapped last June.
Ramel Vela and Roland Letriro have been taken to a hospital in the southern Sulu province after their release. It is unclear why the Jordanian reporter they were working with was not freed.
The men were captured as they set out to interview Abu Sayyaf militants, a group linked to al-Qaeda.
A number of foreigners are being held for ransom in the southern Philippines.
Areas within Sulu province, whose capital is Jolo, and the wider region are used as bases by Islamist militants and rebel groups.
Ramel Vela, a cameraman, and Roland Letriro, an audio technician, were taken hostage as they set out to interview Abu Sayyaf militants in their jungle lair in the autonomous Sulu island province.
“They really lost weight because they were constantly under stress each day,” provincial police chief Antonio Freyra told the Associated Press.
Ramel Vela and Roland Letriro have been taken to a hospital in the southern Sulu province after their release
A Jordanian reporter, Abdulla Atyani, captured along with Ramel Vela and Roland Letriro, is believed to still be in captivity, Antonio Freya said.
Meanwhile, Warren Rodwell, an Australian kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in 2011, was shown alive in a video posted on social media last December.
Looking thin and haggard in the video, Warren Rodwell said: “I personally hold no hope at all for being released.”
The Abu Sayyaf is on the US list of terrorist organizations.
It is considered the smallest and most radical of the extremist movements in the southern Philippines.
The group remains a security threat in the impoverished region where minority Muslims have been fighting for self-rule for decades.
The main Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, recently signed a peace accord with the government in exchange for broad autonomy.
But the Abu Sayyaf were among the rebel groups who refused to sign up to the peace deal.
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