MANILA, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Abu Sayyaf terrorists are behind Sunday's suicide bomb attack in a remote town in the southern Philippines, a general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said on Monday.
Lt. General Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the AFP's Western Mindanao Command, said the unidentified female bomber, clad in black Muslim clothes, allegedly shouted Allah Akbar as she staggered towards the gate of a military camp in Sulu province.
The suspect blew herself up into pieces without even reaching the gate of the camp. "The bomber was the lone fatality," Sobejana said.
"She was holding the trigger mechanism as she approached the gate of the detachment," Sobejana told reporters.
Sobejana said the investigators are trying to determine the identity and the nationality of the suspect.
On Sunday, Lt. Col. Gerard Monfort, the spokesman of AFP Joint Task Force Sulu, said the woman, who appeared to be pregnant because of her large belly, tried to enter the entrance gate of the military detachment late on Sunday afternoon.
The troops manning the gate took a defensive position by hiding behind sandbags and repelled that attack by preventing the bomber from reaching the detachment's gate.
Sunday's suicide bombing is the fourth recorded in the southern Philippines.
The first was in July 2018 near a military detachment in Lamitan City in Basilan Province. The military said a Moroccan was behind the attack that killed 11, including the bomber, and injured several others.
The second suicide bombing attack happened on Jan. 27 this year. At least 27 people were killed and many more injured as a result of the bomb attacks at a Roman Catholic cathedral in Sulu province. Authorities said Indonesian suicide bombers carried out that attack.
The third suicide bombing happened in June this year when two suspected male suicide bombers on motorcycles targeted a military camp also in Sulu province, killing at least seven people, including soldiers.
