Jakarta, Indonesia
AP
—
Indonesian authorities mentioned they’ve recognized a 17-year-old boy because the suspected perpetrator of an assault that shook a mosque at a high school throughout Friday prayers in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, injuring at least 55 folks, largely college students.
Police brushed away hypothesis for now that the blasts have been a terror assault, saying they have been nonetheless investigating.
Witnesses instructed native tv stations that they heard at least two loud blasts round noon, from inside and out of doors the mosque, simply because the sermon had began at the mosque at SMA 72, a state high school inside a navy compound in Jakarta’s northern Kelapa Gading neighborhood.
Students and others ran out in panic as grey smoke crammed the mosque.
“The information I have is that the suspect is undergoing surgery,” Deputy House Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad instructed reporters after visiting pupil victims at a hospital. “The suspect is a 17-year-old male student,” he mentioned with out giving extra particulars.
National Police Chief Listyo Sigit confirmed in a information convention at the presidential palace in Jakarta that the suspect was one among two college students who have been present process surgical procedure attributable to struggling severe accidents within the blasts.
“We have identified the suspected perpetrator,” Sigit mentioned after attending an occasion with President Prabowo Subianto at the palace, “Our personnel are currently conducting an in-depth investigation to determine the suspect’s identity and the environment where he lives, including his house and others.”
Sigit mentioned police investigators are nonetheless accumulating all info to find out the motive, together with how the suspect was in a position to assemble a toy submachine gun with phrases inscribed on it together with “14 words. For Agartha,” and “Brenton Tarrant: Welcome to hell.”
“14 words” is mostly a reference to a white supremacist slogan, whereas Brenton Tarrant is the perpetrator of a 2019 mass taking pictures at a mosque and Islamic middle in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 and injured dozens of others.
“We discovered the weapon was a toy gun with specific markings, which we are also investigating to understand the motive, including how he assembled it and carried out the attack,” Sigit mentioned, including that the teenage male suspect was a pupil at the school.
Most of the victims suffered accidents from glass shards and burns. The reason behind the explosions was not instantly identified however they got here from close to the mosque’s loudspeaker, in accordance with Jakarta Police Chief Asep Edi Suheri.
He mentioned the injured have been rushed to close by hospitals and 20 college students remained hospitalized for burns, three of them with severe accidents.
“Police are still investigating the scene to determine the cause,” he mentioned and urged towards hypothesis that the incident was an assault earlier than the police investigation is accomplished.
Videos circulating on social media confirmed dozens of scholars in school uniform working in panic throughout the school’s basketball courtroom, some overlaying their ears with their fingers, apparently to guard themselves from the loud blasts.
Some of the injured have been carried on stretchers to ready automobiles.
Shocked kinfolk of the scholars gathered at facilities arrange at Yarsi and Cempaka Putih hospitals to hunt details about their family members. Parents instructed tv stations their kids had wounds from being hit within the head, ft and fingers by sharp nails and items of exploding objects.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, was struck by a serious militant assault in 2002 when al-Qaida staged bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 folks, largely international vacationers.
In subsequent years, there have been largely smaller, much less lethal strikes which have focused the federal government, police and anti-terrorism forces, in addition to these thought-about infidels by militant teams.
Friday’s assault was not the primary mosque assault. In 2011, a Muslim militant blew himself up in a mosque at a police compound in Cirebon filled with officers throughout Friday prayers, injuring 30 folks.
In December 2022, a Muslim militant and convicted bomb-maker who was launched from jail the earlier yr blew himself up at a police station in West Java, killing an officer and wounding 11 folks.
Since 2023, the Southeast Asia nation has skilled what authorities name a “zero attack phenomenon,” crediting the federal government with the steady safety state of affairs.