September 17NOORDIN Mohammed Top may have been one of five people killed in a raid on a suspected Islamic militant hideout in Central Java.
Loud explosions and gunfire were heard coming from a house on the outskirts of the town of Solo, a known militant stronghold, as well as shouts of Allahu Akbar (God is Greater).
A police source had earlier said the target of the operation was an associate of Malaysian terrorism suspect Noordin Mohammed Top, the leader of an Al-Qaeda-linked group blamed for a string of deadly bombings in Indonesia.
The source said it was possible that Top was also inside the house.
"Five bodies have been taken out of the house,'' a police intelligence officer told AFP, requesting anonymity.
An AFP correspondent saw three bodies being brought out of the house after the raid ended just before dawn. Metro TV said five people had been killed in the clash, and one member of the anti-terrorism police injured.
Members of the Mobile Brigade, a special police squad, besieged the house in the early hours of the morning and shooting went on for several hours, witnesses said.
Asked about the raid, Saud Usman Nasution, head of the Special Detachment 88 anti-terror squad, said that his unit was "still monitoring'' the situation.
Noordin, 41, who heads a violent splinter faction of the radical Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, is suspected of being behind July 17 double suicide attacks on Jakarta's JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels.
The bombings, which killed seven people including six foreigners, were the first attack in Indonesia in nearly four years.
Noordin allegedly also masterminded a 2003 attack on the Marriott that killed 12 people, as well as the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy and 2005 attacks on tourist restaurants on the holiday island of Bali.
Police believe they narrowly missed Noordin in a dramatic televised raid in August on a safehouse in Temanggung, 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.
Jemaah Islamiyah's ultimate goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines into a fundamentalist Islamic state.
A police source had earlier said the target of the operation was an associate of Malaysian terrorism suspect Noordin Mohammed Top, the leader of an Al-Qaeda-linked group blamed for a string of deadly bombings in Indonesia.
The source said it was possible that Top was also inside the house.
"Five bodies have been taken out of the house,'' a police intelligence officer told AFP, requesting anonymity.
An AFP correspondent saw three bodies being brought out of the house after the raid ended just before dawn. Metro TV said five people had been killed in the clash, and one member of the anti-terrorism police injured.
Members of the Mobile Brigade, a special police squad, besieged the house in the early hours of the morning and shooting went on for several hours, witnesses said.
Asked about the raid, Saud Usman Nasution, head of the Special Detachment 88 anti-terror squad, said that his unit was "still monitoring'' the situation.
Noordin, 41, who heads a violent splinter faction of the radical Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, is suspected of being behind July 17 double suicide attacks on Jakarta's JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels.
The bombings, which killed seven people including six foreigners, were the first attack in Indonesia in nearly four years.
Noordin allegedly also masterminded a 2003 attack on the Marriott that killed 12 people, as well as the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy and 2005 attacks on tourist restaurants on the holiday island of Bali.
Police believe they narrowly missed Noordin in a dramatic televised raid in August on a safehouse in Temanggung, 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.
Jemaah Islamiyah's ultimate goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines into a fundamentalist Islamic state.
Source: The Australian
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