US PRAISES RI FOR ELIMINATING LONG-SOUGHT TERRORIST

New York, Sept. 18 (ANTARA) - The United States administration has praised the Indonesian police for their success in eliminating top Southeast Asian terrorist Noordin M Top in a raid in Central Java on Thursday.

"Obviously, this potentially represents a significant step forward for Indonesia in its battle with political extremists," US State Department spokesman Philip J Crowley, said in Washington, DC, Thursday.

"As for the specific details, we'll refer to the Indonesian Government. We did not participate in the operations nor did we provide information that led to the raid," Crowley said.

National Police Chief Gen Bambang Hendarso Danuri at a press conference in Jakarta on Thursday evening confirmed that one of four terror suspects killed in an early morning shootout in Solo, Central Java, on Thursday was Noordin M Top.

Among the four bodies recovered after the 8-hour raid on a house in a village in Solo was a decapitated one believed to belong to terror mastermind Noordin M Top who had been at large for nine years.

Danuri made the confirmation after the police matched Noordin's fingerprints with those police had kept in their files.

"We obtained Noordin's fingerprints from the Malayian Police and after we matched these with those of one of the bodies, we found they matched on 14 points on the right and left fingers," Danuri said.

Although the identification by the fingerprints was convincing enough, Danuri said, the police would still conduct a DNA test and announce the results within the next 20 hours.

Besides Noordin, the armed police in the raid also shot dead three other terror suspects, namely Bagus Budi Pranoto alias Urwah, Hadi Susilo dan Aryo Sudarso alias Aji, and found a cache of weapons including grenades in the house as well as eight sacks of explosives.