A suicide bomber set off explosives in a police compound in Indonesia today wounding at least four police officers, the most serious incident in a recent spate of attacks by Islamist militants.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, has been the scene of some major attacks by militants linked to al-Qaeda over the past 10 years but there have been few big attacks recently.

The bombing came during Friday prayers at a mosque in the police compound in the town of Cirebon, about 200km southeast of the capital, Jakarta. The bomber was killed.

In an interview with Metro TV, Yenni Rahmawati, a doctor at Pelabuhan hospital in Cirebon said that the hospital has received 28 people injured from the bomb blast. Among the victims was the Cirebon police chief Herukoco, who suffered injuries at the back of his body.

The exact number of the injured victims was yet to be reported since many victims were sent to several other hospitals in the city. The bomb blast occurred inside the mosque at about 12:15pm local time when the noon prayer was about to commence.

The bomb blast was carried out by a suicide bomber, wearing a long black robe, standing in the second row of people inside the mosque who were about to perform Friday prayers.

A terror analyst, Dynno Chrisbon, said that the bomb was the first to have been detonated inside a mosque and inside a police premises. It was allegedly carried out by an operative of a terror cell as a revenge on the police’s anti-terrorist activities.

Police have said that militants in Indonesia have recently changed tactics and were now going after government and law enforcement officials as well as Western targets.

“The police have been the most active in fighting terrorism and that is why they are furious with us,” said national police spokesperson Boy Rafli Amar.

Members of Indonesia’s anti-terrorism unit were on their way to the scene to investigate, a source from the unit said.

The head of Indonesia’s National Counter-Terrorism Agency, Ansyaad Mbai, told Reuters in a recent interview that militants were using parcel bombs and targeting minorities to try to push

an Islamist agenda and warned that more attacks were likely.

Militant attacks and incidents of religious intolerance have risen in recent months, with mobs lynching three followers of a minority Islamic sect and torching two churches on Java island.

Parcel bombs have been sent to people involved in promoting pluralism and counter-terrorism in Jakarta.

- Agencies