BEKASI, Indonesia, (Reuters) – Indonesian police have  shot dead a man suspected to be leading Islamic militant Noordin  Mohammad Top during raids in Central Java and were trying to  identify his body, a police source said yesterday.

Separately, police said they had killed two suspected  militants and found up to 500 kg of bombs during a raid on a  house in the Bekasi area near the capital Jakarta.

Malaysian-born Top is a prime suspect thought to be behind  the near simultaneous suicide attacks on two luxury Jakarta  hotels last month.

The July 17 attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton  killed nine and wounded 53, including Indonesians and  foreigners, and broke a four-year lull when there had been no  major attacks after police had arrested hundreds of militants.

Police have launched a series of raids since Friday and the  police source, who is close to the investigation into the hotel  attacks, told Reuters the man suspected to be Top was killed  during a raid on a workshop in Temanggung in Central Java.

“He was shot dead at the workshop in Temanggung,” the source  said, adding that raids in the area had led police to the house  in Bekasi where bombs had been found.

Police were trying to defuse the bombs and a Reuters  correspondent at the scene heard a loud blast from the cordoned  off area.

“I think this is very significant. Hopefully the person in  Temanggung is Noordin,” said national police spokesman Nanan  Soekarna. He said two suspects believed to be involved in  recruiting suicide bombers were still on the run.

National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said police  had captured three men in Central Java and three men in Jakarta  during the raids.

He said the bombs appeared to have been prepared for use in  a car bomb attack on “a very particular target”, but did not  elaborate.

Soekarna said police had identified the two suicide bombers  who carried out the hotel attacks — 19 year-old Danny Dwi  Permana from Bogor in the Marriot attack and 28 year-old Nana  Ihwa Maulana from Pandeglang in the Ritz-Carlton bombing.

Yesterday, police had said two men had been arrested in a  workshop in a market in Temanggung and had led police to a house  in the same area where there had been a shoot-out with suspected  militants.

Police from Indonesia’s anti-terrorism unit Detachment 88  were still surrounding the remote house in rice fields where  three to four suspected militants were believed to be holed up.

Intelligence officials say Top and fellow Malaysian Azahari  Husin, a bomb-maker who was killed in a 2005 police raid, were  leaders in the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant network, blamed for  a series of bomb attacks in Southeast Asia since 2002.

Police have focused much of their search on Central Java,  where Top was believed to have a network of sympathisers to help  shelter him.

Top is believed to have planned previous bomb attacks on the  JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on the Australian embassy in  Jakarta in 2004, and in Bali in 2005.

The attacks were reported to have been designed to scare off  foreign tourists and businesses so JI could create a caliphate  across Muslim-dominated areas of Southeast Asia.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has vowed to track down  the bombers.