At least 20 Christians were killed during Sunday services when two bombs hit a Catholic church on a southern Philippine island , the military said, days after voters backed Muslim self-rule in the region.
A powerful first blast shattered pews and left bodies strewn inside the cathedral on Muslim-majority Jolo as mass was being celebrated, an army spokesman said.
Just moments later a second explosion outside killed troops who were rushing to help the wounded in the smoking and heavily damaged church.
It is one of the deadliest bomb attacks to strike the insurgency-plagued southern Philippines in years and came amid the hope spurred by voters´ overwhelming approval of a plan to give Muslims more control over their own affairs.
Manila swiftly vowed to hunt down the attackers, but no group has claimed the bombing.
"We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime," presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement. "The law will give them no mercy."
Five soldiers, a member of the coast guard and 12 civilians were among the dead while 83 other people were wounded, said regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana.
The regional police chief Graciano Mijares put the toll slightly higher at 20 dead, lower than a figure of 27 he gave earlier.
The second bomb was left in the utility box of a motorcycle in the parking area outside the church, a military report said.
Authorities said the notorious Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group could be behind the blasts.
"When you talk about terrorism in Sulu, the primary suspect is always the (Abu Sayyaf) but we are not discounting the possibility that there are other perpetrators," Besana told AFP.
The remote island of Jolo is a base of the Abu Sayyaf, which is blamed for deadly bombings, including an attack on a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that claimed 116 lives in the country´s deadliest terror assault.
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