Indonesian police stormed an Islamic militant hideout early yesterday in a raid that killed fugitive terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top and three other militants, police said.
Noordin? body was among four recovered after the early morning raid on a village house in central Java, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters, bringing to an end an exhaustive six-year manhunt.
?rom national police doctors?examinations, antemortem [investigations] and fingerprints sent by Malaysian police, thank God on this holy month of Ramadan ... it? Noordin M. Top,?Danuri said to applause.
Loud explosions and gunfire were heard as police raided the rented house at sunrise after a nine-hour siege on the outskirts of Solo city, a stronghold of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) radical network. The raid left the simple house in the lush, densely populated region a burnt-out shell.
Danuri said police from an elite unit known as Special Detachment 88 launched the raid after interrogating two Noordin acolytes arrested nearby on Wednesday afternoon.
?espite repeated warnings to surrender there was a firefight. A motorcycle was hit, caught fire and they took refuge by huddling in the bathroom,?Danuri said.
?ut our men breached the wall as morning prayers came, at around 5[am] or 6am we carried out a quick operation in three hours and we managed to disable them,?he said.
Danuri said those killed along with Noordin were ?xpert bombmaker?Bagus Budi Pranoto, alias Urwah, close Noordin associate Ario Sudarso, alias Aji, and the renter of the house, Susilo.
He said two men were also arrested and Susilo? wife, who was wounded in the raid, was also in custody.
Police found 200kg of explosive powder already ?repared?by the militants as well as loaded M-16 assault rifles, laptops and surveillance equipment inside the house, he said.
Noordin, a 41-year-old Malaysian who was Southeast Asia? most-wanted man, led a radical splinter faction of the JI network blamed for a string of deadly attacks.
The offshoot, labeled al-舢aeda in the Malay Archipelago, is 貞uspected of being behind the July 17 suicide attacks on Jakarta? JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, which killed seven people including six foreigners.
Noordin allegedly also masterminded a 2003 attack on the Marriott that killed 12 people, as well as the Australian embassy bombing and 2005 attacks on Bali.
?t? a major blow for terrorism in Indonesia generally. I think Noordin was the person most single-mindedly devoted to pursuing the al-Qaeda line in Indonesia,?International Crisis Group analyst Sidney Jones said.
? don? think we can conclude that the problem is over and done with because there are a number of fugitives who are still at large, and some of whom could fill Noordin? shoes,?she said.
?nquestionably, Noodin? network will be severely weakened but it may not disappear,?she said.
Police believe they narrowly missed Noordin in a dramatic televised raid in August on a safe house in Temanggung, also central Java.
Noordin was initially reported dead at the end of the 17-hour siege, but the body later turned out to be that of a florist working in the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel complex who helped plot the attacks from the inside.
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