Police stand guard at the entrance of the local police headquarters following a blast in Medan on Wednesday. Irsan Mulyadi/ Reuters

A suspected suicide bombing outside a police station in Indonesia has left at least one attacker dead, authorities said on Wednesday.

The explosion happened around 8:45am local time (0145 GMT) at a police compound in Medan on Sumatra island.

“We suspect this is a suicide bombing with one attacker killed,” national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told reporters in Jakarta.

Indonesian police at their headquarters in Medan after the suspected suicide attack on Wednesday. 

An AFP reporter at the scene saw a body lying on the ground outside the station.

A police source who did not want to be named told AFP that the attack was perpetrated by at least two suicide bombers, but that was not officially confirmed.

Unconfirmed local media reports said at least one police officer had been rushed to hospital after the bombing but that their condition was not immediately known.

Police stations have been frequent targets for radicals in the world’s biggest Muslim majority nation, which has long struggled with Islamist militancy.

In August, Indonesian authorities shot and arrested a suspected militant who attacked police officers at a station in the country’s second-biggest city Surabaya.

Agence France-Presse