Teen Arrested for High School Mosque Bombing in Indonesia

At least two loud explosions were reported from the mosque attached to state high school SMA 72 in Jakarta, Indonesia, during morning prayer services on Friday.

Police quickly announced that a 17-year-old male suspect was in custody and was “undergoing surgery” for injuries he sustained during the blast.

According to National Police Chief Listyo Sigit, another student was also receiving surgical treatment after the explosion. More than 50 people were injured in the blast, many of them with severe burns.

“We have identified the suspected perpetrator. 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 said.

“The motive is still being investigated. We found toy weapons and some writings, which we are examining to understand the motive,” he said.

The Associated Press (AP) reported one of the “toy weapons” was a toy machine gun inscribed with two slogans: “14 words. For Agartha” and “Branton Tarrant: Welcome to hell.”

“‘14 words’ is generally a reference to a white supremacist slogan, while Brenton Tarrant is the perpetrator of a 2019 mass shooting at a mosque and Islamic center in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 and injured dozens of others,” the AP noted.

Police officials said they did not believe the bombing should be classified as a terrorist attack. Indonesia has a history of terrorist bombings, most notoriously an al-Qaeda attack on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, but the government says there have been no such bombings since 2023.

The high school and mosque are located inside an Indonesian navy compound in the Kelapa Gading neighborhood of northern Jakarta. Social media videos showed dozens of students running from the school, some covering their ears after the deafening explosions, while smoke poured from the windows.

“We were so surprised by the sound, it was massive. Our hearts were beating fast, we couldn’t breathe, and we ran outside,” said a witness who worked in the school cafeteria.

“I thought it was an electrical wiring problem, or the sound system exploded, but we didn’t know exactly what it was because we ran out just as a white smoke billowed from the mosque,” she said.

The BBC quoted Indonesian news interviews with students who said the suspect was a student at the school, describing him as a “loner” who “often made drawings depicting violence.”