Indonesia church attack: would-be suicide bomber with backpack full of explosives injures priest with an axe

From Sky News Australia and the London Evening Standard

The man managed to take an axe from his rucksack, which only burned without exploding, and attacked the Rev. Albert Pandiangan, causing a slight injury to the 60-year-old priest’s hand, Amar said. 

The teenager, identified as Ivan Armadi Hasugian, was restrained by members of the congregation until police arrived.

Based on an account by a member of the congregation, the perpetrator was sitting among worshippers when he prepared a makeshift bomb in yellow pipes North Sumatra police spokeswoman Senior Commissioner Rina Sari Ginting. He then stood up and the bomb exploded in his backpack, injuring himself before running towards the priest and attacking him, the spokeswoman said. 

Officers said the motive for the attack at the Roman Catholic St. Yoseph Church in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province, was not clear, but the perpetrator carried a symbol indicating support for the Islamic State group. 

They also confiscated Hasugian’s backpack which contained items displaying a logo that resembled that of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Hasugian confessed that he was not acting alone in his attempted attack and that someone else had ordered him to carry it out, Ginting said.