Philippines bomb attacks leave 33 injured as blasts rip through sports event and busy road
The mystery blast is the second attack on a public place by unknown bombers in just one week
AT least 33 people have been injured in two separate bomb blasts in the Philippines, authorities say.
The first blast ripped through a boxing match at a downtown plaza in Hilongos, Leyte, last night, wounding 33 people.
Barely an hour later a second bomb went off on a highway on the southern island of Mindanao. It is not clear if anyone was injured in the second blast.
Another unexploded bomb was also found in Leyte, which is about 385 miles south of Manila, less than an hour after the first went off.
Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Delos Reyes said: "A lamppost was catapulted from the impact of the explosion."
The mystery blasts are the second attacks on public places by unknown bombers in just one week.
A grenade injured 16 people at a Catholic church on Christmas Eve.
Police said it was too early to say if Wednesday's bombings were connected or what the perpetrators' motives might be.
Mindanao has been wracked by bombings and other forms of violence carried out by Muslim extremists who consider the region their ancestral homeland, waging a decades-long independence struggle that is believed to have claimed more than 120,000 lives.
Muslim extremists have also been blamed for attacks outside Mindanao, such as the discovery of a bomb near the US embassy in Manila in November.
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