Dozens injured in mosque blast in Indonesia high school : NPR

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities said they have identified a 17-year-old boy as a suspect in an attack that rocked a mosque at a high school during Friday prayers in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, wounding at least 55 people, mostly students.

Police have so far dismissed suggestions that the explosions were a terrorist attack, saying they are still investigating.

Witnesses told local TV stations that around noon they heard at least two loud explosions from inside and outside the mosque, just as the sermon began at SMA 72 Mosque, a public high school on the naval compound in northern Jakarta's Kelapa Gading district.

Students and others ran out of the building in panic as gray smoke filled the mosque.

“According to the information I have, the suspect is undergoing surgery,” Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Sufmi Dasko Ahmad told reporters after visiting the injured students at the hospital. “The suspect is a 17-year-old student,” he said, without giving details.

National police chief Listyo Sigit confirmed at a news conference at the presidential palace in Jakarta that the suspect was one of two students who underwent surgery for serious injuries from the blasts.

“We have identified the suspected culprit,” Sigit said after attending an event with President Prabowo Subianto at the palace. “Our officers are currently conducting an in-depth investigation to establish the identity of the suspect and the environment in which he lives, including his home and other premises.”

Sigit said police investigators are still gathering all the information to determine a motive, including how the suspect was able to assemble a toy submachine gun with words written on it, including “14 words. For Agartha” and “Brenton Tarrant: Welcome to Hell.”

“14 words” is typically a reference to a white supremacist slogan, and Brenton Tarrant is the perpetrator of the 2019 mass shooting at a mosque and Islamic center in Christchurch, New Zealand, which killed 51 people and injured dozens of others.

“We found that it was a toy gun with special markings, which we are also investigating to understand the motive, including how he assembled it and carried out the attack,” Sigit said, adding that the teenage male suspect was a student at the school.

Most of the victims suffered injuries from glass fragments and burns. The cause of the explosions was not immediately known, but Jakarta Police Chief Asep Edi Suheri said they occurred near the mosque's loudspeaker.

The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals, he said, while 20 students remained in hospital with burns, three of them with serious injuries.

“Police are still investigating the scene to determine the cause,” he said and urged that there should be no speculation that the incident was an attack until the police investigation was completed.

Videos circulating on social media showed dozens of students in school uniforms running around the school basketball court in panic, some covering their ears with their hands, apparently to protect themselves from loud explosions.

Some of the wounded were carried on stretchers to waiting cars.

Shocked relatives of the students gathered at centers set up at Yarsi and Chempaka Putih hospitals to seek information about their loved ones. Parents told television stations that their children had wounds to the head, legs and arms from sharp nails and shrapnel from exploding objects.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, suffered a major militant attack in 2002 when al-Qaeda carried out bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

The following years have seen mostly smaller, less lethal strikes targeting the government, police and anti-terrorism forces, as well as those deemed infidels by militant groups.

Friday's attack was not the first time the mosque has been attacked. In 2011, a Muslim militant blew himself up in a Cirebon police station mosque filled with officers during Friday prayers, injuring 30 people.

In December 2022, a Muslim militant and convicted bomb maker released from prison the previous year blew himself up at a police station in West Java, killing an officer and injuring 11 people.

Since 2023, the Southeast Asian country has experienced what authorities call the “zero attack phenomenon,” which the government attributes to its stable security situation.