Gunmen stopped a group of motorcycle riders then opened fire with assault rifles in a busy downtown area in the southern Philippines, killing nine people, police said Sunday, in the latest violence to roil the volatile region.
Police officials said the attack on the victims, who were mostly farmers, at noon Saturday in Kabacan town in Cotabato province may have been sparked by a local feud and was likely not an act of terrorism.
Cotabato lies in a poverty-wracked region where a decades-long Muslim separatist insurgency has eased largely due to a 2014 peace deal between the Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group and the government, although small armed groups aligned with the Islamic State group still pose a threat.
