At least 25 people have been killed and many more wounded in two explosions outside a church during Sunday Mass in the southern Philippines area of Mindanao, where Muslims comprise the largest minority. The Islamic terrorist group Abu Sayyaf is active in the region. The Sunday morning explosions resemble tactics previously used by the Islamic State-linked militant group to inflict mass casualties.

Aljazeera At least 25 people were killed in two bomb blasts at a Roman Catholic cathedral on the southern Philippine island of Jolo where the Abu Sayyaf group and other armed fighters are active. Several soldiers were among those killed in the blast, which also wounded at least 77 people who were attending Sunday Mass, officials said.

The dead included 14 civilians and seven soldiers, said Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares, police director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The first bomb went off outside the Roman Catholic cathedral on Jolo island in Sulu province, and a second one exploded when government forces responded to the attack. n a statement the Philippine army said the explosions were likely caused by improvised explosive devise (IED).

Photos on social media showed debris and bodies lying on a busy street outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been hit by bombs in the past.

Jolo island has long been troubled by the presence of Abu Sayyaf, an armed group blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organisation because of years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.

The twin blasts occurred nearly a week after minority Muslims in the mostly Roman Catholic nation approved a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines. Nearly three million minority Muslims in southern Philippines voted in a referendum for autonomy. The creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao was part of a 2014 peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group. Although most of the Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it.

“The motive is surely … terrorism. These are people who do not want peace. It is sad that this happened right after the Bangsamoro law was ratified,” regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana told the Agence France-Presse.