Indonesian authorities claim to have killed the top Islamic militant behind last month's Jarkata hotel bombings.
Noordin Mohammad Top was reportedly shot dead by police following an 18-hour siege in Central Java.
Top is a prime suspect in last month’s near simultaneous suicide attacks on Jakarta’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, which killed nine people and wounded 53.
Police said the stand-off at a house in Temanggung district was part of anti-terror operation following the arrest on Friday of several suspected militants loyal to Top and the seizure of 500kg of explosives.
Officers surrounded the remote building for 18 hours before blowing open one the doors and entering.
After an exchange of gunfire and explosions, police emerged laughing and shaking hands with each other.
One body was brought out and put in a wooden coffin, while two more were carried out in body bags.
Neighbour Kosidah Basuki said: “At the beginning, we didn’t believe that it was a terrorist or even Noordin, but now we do.”
Police are still awaiting confirmation that Top, who is originally from Malaysia, was among the dead.
Indonesian intelligence officials claim Top was a leader of the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia since 2002.
He is believed to have planned previous bomb attacks on the JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and in Bali in 2005.
Andi Wijayanto, a security expert at the University of Indonesia, said getting Top would be“a significant blow to the group as its leader has been killed and its logistics have been hurt”.
In a separate incident, police said they had killed two suspected militants in a raid on a house in the Bekasi area, near the capital.
Police said the two men had been shot because they were about to detonate hand-held bombs.
Source:The times
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