‘Suicide bomber’ among Philippines blast suspects: Duterte

A male suicide bomber and his wife carried out a Catholic cathedral attack that killed 21 people in the country’s restive south, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday. Duterte told reporters a woman who remains at large left a device that exploded during mass at the cathedral in the remote Muslim-majority island of Jolo on Sunday, and her husband later blew himself up outside.

The president’s account differed from earlier statements by security officials. He said military intelligence told him Tuesday the second bomb was strapped on to the body of the male suspect who detonated it as survivors of the first explosion ran for their lives. “They (investigators) could not find any part of the body because it exploded, because that was terrorism and that was a suicide,” the president said.