Seven militants were killed during a fierce gunbattle with Indonesian police in East Java province on Wednesday and local media said they might include one of Southeast Asia's most wanted Islamic radicals. Metro TV and other stations said Malaysian Azahari bin Husin had been killed in the shoot-out at a villa in the town of Batu. SCTV station said Azahari might have blown himself up.Officials said they could not confirm the reports, although the president's spokesman said Azahari was believed to have used the villa as a hideout. National police spokesman Aryanto Budihardjo said the militants shot at anti-terrorism police and hurled 11 explosive devices at them after they surrounded the villa. Other officials have said the militants threw grenades.
| Which are, in fact, explosive devices... |
Dino Patti Djalal, a spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said it was not clear if Azahari had been killed. "It was believed Azahari was hiding in this house, but there is no confirmation at the moment that Azahari was there," Djalal told Reuters, adding the president was following events closely.
| 48 hour rule in effect |
| That'd be Azahari they're talking about in that last sentence, not Yudhoyono. Though I guess he's hiding there, too, since he's president... |
Police spokesman Budihardjo said police had put the villa under surveillance in recent days. "This afternoon our members approached the house and were shot from the inside. We fired warning shots and then we shot at the house. Then they hurled 11 bombs at us," said Budihardjo. Major General Syamsul Mapparepa, the regional military commander, earlier told Antara the militants had waged stiff resistance, with some throwing grenades.
Police have launched a renewed effort to catch key masterminds behind bombings of the past few years, especially Azahari and another fugitive Malaysian leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Noordin M. Top.
Additional: JAKARTA (AFX) - Top terror suspect Azahari Husin blew himself up after being cornered by Indonesian police at his hideout in East Java, a journalist at the scene told Indonesian TV. 'The body was in pieces but his face could still be recognised by two members of the anti-terrorist unit from Jakarta,' Karni Ilyas, who was with the police anti-terror unit when they entered the house, told ANTV.
| It's been rumored he always wore a bomb belt just for this sort of thing |
They are wanted for key roles in the Oct 1 suicide bomb attacks in Bali, as well as the October 2002 attacks on the resort island that left 202 people dead, in addition to several other deadly blasts.
Journalist Ilyas told ANTV that people in the house fired shots when police ordered them to come out, wounding one officer. The fugitives then blew themselves up as well as the house, located in the resort hill town of Batu 720 kilometres east of Jakarta. Police entered the house and saw the three bodies as well as further wiring, so they retreated, fearing another explosion.
Ilyas said separately that police had trailed another man from the house to the city of Semarang in Central Java and believed the man was an envoy travelling to Noordin. 'It seems that he felt he was being followed so he tried to explode a bomb on his body, but police managed to prevent him,' Ilyas said.
| Good, now they can "question" him about who was in the house and where Noordin is, or was. If he wasn't in the house amoung the deaders, he's lit out by now. |
| That's either a pretty brave or a pretty dumb polis who was willing to tackle a guy before he could detonate his boom belt. |