Teen strikes priest with axe after bomb fails
A teenage suicide bomber was foiled inside a Catholic church in Indonesia on Sunday after he was injured by his faulty explosives.
Despite his injuries he lunged at the priest with an axe before the congregation wrestled him to the floor.
The Rev Albert Pandiangan, 60, suffered a slight hand injury. The terrorist, named by local media as Ivan Armadi Hasugian, 17, a student, was restrained until police arrived at the church in Medan, the largest city on the island of Sumatra.
Police said the attacker carried a small hand-drawn symbol that resembled an Islamic State logo of Arabic script above a circle of text. A picture of his ID card, circulating online, indicated he is a Muslim.
Most people in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslimmajority country, follow a moderate form of the faith but in recent years there have been attacks on religious minorities. Police said the suspected terrorist was a ‘‘puppet’’ working for other people.
‘‘We are still interrogating the suspect,’’ Mardiaz Khusin Dwihananto, the Medan police chief, said. ‘‘He said someone he met on the street asked him to launch the attack.’’
Suhardi Alius, chief of the National Counterterrorism Agency, said the teenager was too young to have planned the attack alone.
The congregation was at morning Mass when the teenager tried to detonate a bomb in his backpack. A woman sitting beside him said he had acted suspiciously from the start.
‘‘He was fidgety the whole time. He could not follow our ritual.’’ When the priest began his sermon at the pulpit, Hasugian removed some cables and connected them to the detonator, causing a small explosion, she said.
He suffered minor injuries but ran to attack the priest with an axe drawn from his bag, Timbas Tarigan, another worshipper, said.
‘‘A terrorism act was carried out on Sunday morning at the St Joseph catholic church,’’ Rina Sari Ginting, a spokeswoman for Medan police, said. ‘‘Police are interrogating the perpetrator . . . and will search his house for any bomb-making materials.’’
Since the Bali bombings in 2002 in which 202 people died, Indonesian authorities have carried out a nationwide campaign against militant groups.