Indonesia says key terror suspect believed killed

MALANG, Indonesia - One of Southeast Asia's most wanted Islamic militants, Malaysian Azahari bin Husin, is believed to have blown himself up after a fierce gunbattle with Indonesian police.

General Sutanto said the body believed to be Azahari's and those of two other militants were still in a bobby-trapped villa in the town of Batu in East Java province.

Blasts from inside had blown a hole in the roof, he said, adding police had been told Azahari would be there.

"We believe it's Azahari, according to our officers who went onto the roof and saw that the (physical) traits resemble him. We will reconfirm again tomorrow once it's daylight and we defuse bombs still inside the house," Sutanto said.

"During the shoot-out, they hurled bombs at us and at the end the biggest bomb caused their deaths."

Sutanto, who earlier had been more definite that Azahari had been killed, said the militant's face was not too disfigured.

Dubbed the "demolition man" by Malaysian newspapers, Azahari was the suspected brains behind several bomb attacks on Western targets in Indonesia and the top bomb maker in Jemaah Islamiah, a shadowy network seen as the regional arm of al Qaeda.

Indonesian police say the electronics expert designed and supervised the making of the car bomb that caused the most damage in the 2002 bomb attacks on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

The police chief said a militant detained earlier on Wednesday in the Central Java city of Semarang had told police Azahari would be at the house in Batu, not far from the popular tourist city of Malang.

That detained militant had taken bombs and ammunition to Semarang from Batu, Sutanto added.

National police spokesman Aryanto Budihardjo said the militants inside the Batu house shot at a crack anti-terrorism police unit and hurled 11 explosive devices at them when they surrounded the villa on Wednesday afternoon. Other officials said the militants threw grenades.

One policeman had been wounded by gunfire, he said.

Azahari's death, if confirmed, will be a boost for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has been hit by a stream of bad news in recent months, including a worsening bird flu outbreak and rocketing inflation.

Police have stepped up their hunt for militants including Azahari and other members of Jemaah Islamiah, which has been blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia. Azahari had long been believed to be hiding in Indonesia, police had said.

East Java province lies adjacent to Bali, where three suicide bombers killed 20 people on October 1 in the latest attack.

Sutanto also said police had identified two of those suicide bombers, which could help speed up that investigation. He gave no details.

Residents said the Batu gunbattle erupted without warning.

"It was like a war. There were gun shots and explosions," one resident, who gave his name as Gunawan, told Metro TV.

Besides the Bali blasts three years ago, police accuse Azahari of being a key figure behind the 2003 suicide bombing at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people and a bombing outside the Australian embassy last year that killed 10.

Believed to be in his mid-40s, Azahari holds a doctorate from the University of Reading.

Jemaah Islamiah wants to set up an Islamic state in parts of Southeast Asia. Its network has been disrupted by numerous arrests since the 2002 Bali bombings, although security experts have said it was still a threat.

- REUTERS