Two Christian worshippers were killed and seven others injured when motorcycle-riding suspects fired a grenade launcher at a Protestant church service in North Cotabato province in Mindanao.Police chief Mautin Pangandingin said the attack occurred on Wednesday night at the United Church of Christ of the Philippines chapel in the town of Pikit, North Cotabato attended by about 30 worshippers. He said, "There was an ongoing service when two still unidentified men on a motorcycle stopped at the main door of the chapel which was then open and one of them fired a grenade launcher, killing two and wounding seven other worshippers."
The attack came more than a week after still unidentified gunmen gunned down two army soldiers outside a Catholic church in the town of Datu Piang in the neighboring province of Maguindanao on September 30. The soldiers had just come out of the church where they had lit devotional candles to mark the birthday of one of the victims when the suspects who were apparently waiting fired at them, killing them on the spot. The soldiers were not armed and in civilian clothes when they were attacked, police said.
Colonel Marlon Abo, the head of an army brigade to which the victims belonged, suspected that members of a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) were behind the killing. Abo explained the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) said they would continue their attacks against the military and the police in opposition to the historic Bangsamoro agreement signed in March by the Philippine government and the MILF.