5 killed in Indonesian militant hideout raid: police

Armed Indonesian police raided a suspected Islamic militant hideout in Central Java early Thursday leaving at least five people dead, police and witnesses said.

Loud explosions and gunfire were heard as police stormed the house at around 7:00 am (0000 GMT) at the end of a nine-hour siege on the outskirts of Solo city, a longtime stronghold of militants of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) radical network.

"Five bodies have been taken out of the house. Four have been identified as Urwah, Maruto, Susilo and Putri Munaroh," a police intelligence officer told AFP, requesting anonymity.

"The fifth body was decapitated by the second explosion, we suspect he may be Noordin Mohammed Top as he has fair skin and is tall like Noordin," the officer said.

Police have declined to say if the target of the operation was Noordin, a Malaysian who leads a radical splinter faction of JI blamed for a string of deadly attacks.

Asked by AFP if Noordin was among those killed in the raid, Special Detachment 88 anti-terror squad chief Saud Usman Nastion said: "I don't know."

A neighbour, Amal, said the raided house had been rented by the dead man Susilo and his wife Putri Munaroh, who was six months pregnant.

"Susilo was a nice guy, he moved here six months ago. He only registered his identity card after three months because the people here demanded that he do it," he said.

Noordin, 41, leads a JI offshoot labeled Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago and 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 major attacks 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.

Although Noordin's faction is estranged from JI's mainstream, which has rejected spectacular attacks, analysts say he has been able to fall back on a network of sympathetic schools and families while continuing to recruit.