AN ELITE Indonesian police squad has killed a man believed to be the most wanted Islamic militant in southeast Asia, Noordin Mohammad Top, who was linked to bombings in Jakarta and on the island of Bali.

Officers of Detachment 88 stormed a house amid green rice paddies in central Java yesterday morning, using robot cameras to find their target as they blasted from room to room with grenades.

The man made a last stand inside the bathroom as walls shattered around him, screaming out the name, “Noordin Top”, before black-clad marksmen fired volleys of shots into the room, witnesses said.

It was the climax to a 17-hour siege that followed a swoop on militants in the town of Temanggung, 250 miles southeast of Jakarta.

Undercover officers had earlier seized two of Top’s bodyguards in the town’s market and then made their way to his refuge, which was cordoned off and surrounded on Friday.

After several exchanges of gunfire, there was a lull overnight. Shortly before 8am yesterday, heavy firing and explosions could be heard. It was almost two hours before the shooting stopped.

At least one body was seen by reporters being dragged from the house and placed in a makeshift coffin. Two more were put into body bags.

There appears to have been no effort to negotiate a surrender with the suspect. Top, who was 40, had vowed to go down fighting and had pledged that his death would be bloodily avenged.

A formal identification of Top’s body has yet to be made. Police said last night they would conduct a DNA test before confirming his identity.

If verified, his death would be a blow to a network of violent extremists that has wreaked havoc with suicide bombings across the world’s most populous Islamic nation.

It would also shatter the superstitious belief among some Javanese Muslims that Top possessed mystical powers that made him invulnerable to the police.

In fact, he evaded capture for years by scrupulously avoiding the use of mobile phones, relying on a tightly knit group of collaborators and flitting from village to village in the vast archipelago of 240m people.

Top was a prime suspect in the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta last month, in which nine people died, including two suspected suicide bombers. Fifty-three people were injured. His catalogue of violent crime stretched back seven years.

In the past 48 hours the security forces have launched a series of raids in which two other militants died and two were arrested. Police also seized half a ton of explosives, three suicide bombing vests and a car bomb kit.

The extremists’ targets included the residence of the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the country’s police chief said last night.

Rumours of impending terrorist strikes had caused widespread concern in Jakarta last week and several office buildings housing foreign companies were evacuated.

Top was the last remaining high-profile figure among a group of militants who came to prominence with the 2002 Bali bombings in which 202 people died, including 28 Britons.

The group called itself Jemaah Islamiah and sought to create an Islamic caliphate made up of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Its profession of holy war was not extreme enough for Top, who felt some of the militants had lost heart after Indonesian public opinion proved hostile to the slaughter of innocent people in Bali.

He formed a breakaway faction, which he named “Al-Qaeda for the Malay archipelago”, and set out to kill as many “infidels” as possible.

According to Sidney Jones of International Crisis Group, an expert on Islamic militancy, Top’s group numbered about 30 dedicated individuals. The US State Department has designated him as a financier of terrorism since the 2002 Bali attacks.

He was the bomb-maker, recruiter and logistical master-mind behind several complex terrorist operations. Indonesian prosecutors linked him directly to a 2003 car bomb attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta.

The following year, his followers almost managed to crash a van packed with explosives into the Australian embassy. The blast killed nine people, including embassy security guards and passers-by, as well as the bombers.

In 2005, three young extremists, supposedly recruited by Top, blew themselves up in a second attack on tourist targets in Bali.

The Indonesian security forces staged a counter-attack in November 2005 when they stormed a house in Java and killed Top’s closest associate, Azahari bin Husin, a Malaysian-born and British-educated bomb-maker who was known as “Demolition Man”.

Hundreds of extremists have since been rounded up and the government has scored significant moral and political success with a programme to convince young Muslims that violence against innocent people is against Islam.

Last year the authorities felt secure enough to go ahead with the execution by firing squad of three men convicted of organising and funding the 2002 Bali outrage.

In death-row interviews with The Sunday Times, the trio vowed that their death sentences would be avenged.

Top’s latest mission appears to have been directed to that end. By targeting hotels used by foreigners, he was returning to the principles of jihadist violence that he imbibed at a religious boarding school in Malaysia.

The security forces have adeptly used informers and new technology to improve their counter-terrorism tactics, however. Special forces came close to catching Top in 2005 and last year.

After the July 17 attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, Top’s claim of responsibility was posted on the internet.

Police issued a photograph of him along with sketches of the two suicide bombers, who were aged 19 and 28, together with an offer of a $100,000 (£60,000) reward for information leading to his capture.

The breakthrough came within weeks, leading the special forces to the rural hideout on Friday.

Political benefits are sure to follow for President Yudhoyono, who has just won reelection on a platform of religious tolerance and economic reform.

The Indonesian government will also feel more confident of success as it prepares for a visit later this year from President Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood in the country.

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