38 Dead in Christmas Attacks

Posted on Dec 25, 2010

AP / Nickee Butlangan

Philippine National Police investigators inspect the damage to the Sacred Heart Catholic chapel after an explosion during a Christmas Day Mass on Saturday.

Attacks in the Philippines and Nigeria have killed at least 38 people as anti-Christian violence came in the form of a series of bomb attacks against churches during Christmas festivities. —JCL

Al-Jazeera English:

Fresh attacks against Christians in the Philippines and Nigeria have marred Christmas festivities as church leaders condemned religious persecution and called for global peace and reconciliation.

As Christian leaders highlighted the plight of believers facing the threat of attacks around the world, a bomb in a church during Christmas mass in the southern Philippines on Saturday wounded 11 people, including a priest.

Military officials would not immediately name any suspects in the blast on Jolo island, but the island is a known bastion of the Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaeda-linked group, blamed for deadly attacks in the Philippines and for kidnapping priests and nuns.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.