By ZAKKI HAKIM
Associated Press Writer
MALANG, Indonesia (AP) -- One of Southeast Asia's most wanted
terrorists apparently blew himself up Wednesday to escape capture
when an elite security unit attacked his hideout, Indonesia's
president said. Two other suspected militants were thought killed
in the blast.
Known as the "Demolition Man" for his expertise with explosives,
Azahari bin Husin was a key figure in Jemaah Islamiyah, a terror
network with links to al-Qaida that has been blamed for a series of
deadly bombings as well as failed plots in Indonesia, the
Philippines and Singapore.
"We are convinced it is Azahari," President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono told reporters, although he said laboratory tests would
be conducted to confirm his identity.
An elite U.S-trained police unit raided Azahari's safe house in
Malang in east Java province on Wednesday. Officers said he and two
other militants there blew themselves up to avoid capture as the
heavily armed officers moved in.
On Thursday, bomb squad officers picked through the badly damaged
and bullet-marked building to ensure it was not booby trapped. The
three bodies remained in the house.
Forensic officers were scheduled to take DNA and fingerprint
samples from the dead men once the house was clear.
Australia's Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said Indonesian
police were certain it was Azahari after anti-terrorist forces
found his head.
His death would be a blow to the group, which former members say is
motivated by anger at U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world and a
desire to establish an Islamic state across the region.
But security experts cautioned that even if Azahari died, Jemaah
Islamiyah remained capable of staging attacks. They said at least
four of its senior leaders were at large in Indonesia and the
Philippines.
Azahari, a native of Malaysia, was accused of masterminding
bombings that killed hundreds of people in Indonesia the past three
years, but long eluded police by moving from one rented house to
another in densely populated areas.
Police spokesman Aryanto Budihardjo said the raided house in Malang
was rented by Azahari's group three months ago and authorities
started surveillance 10 days ago after being tipped off by a
recently arrested terror suspect. The town is about 530 miles east
of the capital, Jakarta.
Gen. Sutanto, the national police chief, told reporters that
Azahari realized he was trapped when members of an elite
U.S.-trained anti-terrorism unit moved in on the house Wednesday,
backed by snipers stationed on nearby rooftops.
The suspected terrorists inside shot at police and set off at least
11 explosions.
"The last one, the big one, was a suicide blast. That is the one
that killed them," Sutanto said as hundreds of onlookers crowded
behind a yellow police tape for a glimpse of the smoking,
bombed-out building.
Officials have described Azahari, said to be in his 40s, as Jemaah
Islamiyah's bomb-making expert.
Together with Noordin Mohamed Top, another Malaysian, Azahari was
accused of direct involvement in at least four terror attacks: the
2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreign
tourists; two bombings in Jakarta in 2003 and 2004 that took 23
lives; and the Oct. 1 suicide attacks on Bali that caused 20 more
deaths.
Sutanto said Noordin was not believed to be among those killed
Wednesday. Officials say the two men had taken to traveling apart.
The pair are thought to have left a rented house near Jakarta in
July 2004 not long before a police raid that found traces of
explosives.
Azahari is believed to have been introduced to militant Islam after
meeting Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged top leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, in
the 1980s.
Azahari studied mechanical engineering at Adelaide University in
Australia before getting a doctorate in property valuation from
Reading University in the United Kingdom in 1990.
He taught at a Johor university before getting involved with Jemaah
Islamiyah. Azahari is known to have received bomb-making training
in Mindanao in the southern Philippines in 1999 and advanced
training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan in 2000.
Azahari fled Malaysia, leaving behind his wife and two children,
when police uncovered his role in Jemaah Islamiyah during a
crackdown after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.