Bomb attack leaves several dead at Philippine hotel
An explosion that ripped through a hotel in the southern Philippines has left three people dead and injured 27.
The blast at the Atilano Pension House occurred as guests had gathered to celebrate a wedding in the city of Zamboanga.
The explosion blew the roof off the hotel and destroyed the upper levels, according to witnesses.
Philippines officials say the militant Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), or the smaller but extremely violent Abu Sayyaf militant group, may have carried out the attacks.
"The bomb is composed of TNT component, we are looking at the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group behind this explosion," Regional police director Felicisimo Khu told the Philippines Star newspaper.
The southern Philippines suffers from several overlapping conflicts.
Abu Sayyaf has launched several large-scale attacks in the past, although the much larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is the dominant militant group in the region.
Both claim to be fighting to establish a separate Islamic state, but their influence has waned in recent years and their fighters are thought to number only a few hundred.
MILF holds intermittent peace talks with the government and in 2008 reached a ceasefire agreement in 2008, but in October of 2011 the government launched a major offensive against renegade elements of MILF.
The hotel blast may have been in retaliation, although investigations are ongoing.
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