NOORDIN M TOP BELIEVED KILLED IN POLICE RAID IN TEMANGGUNG

Temanggung, Central Java, Aug. 8 (ANTARA) - Anti-terror police at 9.30 am local time on Saturday raided a house believed to be a terrorist hideout at Beji village in the Kedu region of Temanggung District, Central Java.

The raid was carried out after at least five explosions were heard happening in the house. Fugitive Malaysian-born terrorist Noordin M Top was believed to have been killed in the raid.

Police officers entered the house and fired profusely inside the house while other policemen surrounded the house and opened its windows by force.

Before breaking into the house, the police fired at the house from a nearby hill.

The Indonesian government has intensified efforts to find Noordin M Top following the bombings of two hotels at Mega Kuningan, in Jakarta last July 17, 2009, which filled nine people and injured 53 others.

Based on the findings and modus operandi of the bomb blasts, Noordin M Top and his network were suspected to have been behind the bombings.

Azhari Husin and Noordin M Top, both Malaysian nationals, were believed to have masterminded the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta on August 5, 2003 which killed 12 people, and injured 147 others.

Azhari was killed in a police raid in East Java in November 2005 but Noording M Top who was with him was able to escape.

Dr Azhari and his associate Noordin Mohammad Top, a terror coordinator of the Al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian branch of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network, are also believed to have masterminded a series of major terrorist acts in Indonesia, including the Bali bombings in 2002, a deadly blast at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004, and bombings in Bali in October 2005 that killed more than 220 people.

Meanwhile, in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, early Saturday (Aug. 8), anti-terror police killed two terrorists in their rented house.

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