Brain behind Bali blasts killed, says Indonesia

Indonesian counter-terrorism forces on Tuesday killed a man who was believed to have been one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings during a raid in the capital Jakarta, police and reports said.

The man was among three people killed in two raids on the city's outskirts. Police did not disclose the identities of the three, saying "a forensic examination was still being carried out".

But a police source said one was believed to be Dulmatin, a leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group and an al-Qaida-trained bomb maker with a US bounty of $10 million on his head.

It is not the first report of his death. In 2008, Philippine military officials said they believed Dulmatin's body had been exhumed on the island of Tawi-tawi. The security ministry's counter-terrorism chief, Ansyaad Mbai, said: "If it's true that it's him, we will be very grateful that the most wanted terrorist has been killed in Pamulang. It will be a big relief to us."

National police spokesman Edward Aritonang said one of the three was killed in a gunfight with counter-terrorism police at an internet cafe in Pamulang, west of the capital. Witnesses later saw a body bag taken from the cafe into an ambulance.

Believed to be in his late 30s, Dulmatin is accused of helping JI plan and carry out the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people on the Indonesian resort island, most of them foreign tourists.

JI is a Southeast Asian extremist group inspired by al-Qaida. Its ultimate goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and southern Philippines into a fundamentalist Islamic state.