The death of wanted terrorist Noordin M Top in a raid in Central Java on Thursday marks the end of a police chase for a man who the US State Department once said was a suspect in every major anti-Western attack in Indonesia since 2002.
Noordin, who previously escaped police shootouts in which his associates died in 2005 and again last month, was the leading suspect in July 17 attacks at the JW Marriot and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed nine people, including two bombers.
He was also the suspected mastermind behind the bombing of a nightclub in the largely Hindu resort island of Bali seven years ago that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. Three men convicted of that attack, Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron, were shot by firing squad in November last year.
Noordin was born in 1968 in Malaysia's Johor state, neighboring Singapore. At about the age of 27, while studying for a master's degree at nearby Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, he started attending lectures at a boarding school set up by regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, according to International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based organization that provides advice and analysis on resolving conflicts.
The school became a nerve center for JI, which advocates jihad to establish an Islamic caliphate ruled by Shariah law in Malaysia, Indonesia, southern Philippines and southern Thailand. Its associates included Abu Bakar Bashir, JI's spiritual adviser who was implicated in the 2002 Bali bombings, and Hambali, a suspected terrorist held by the US at Guantanamo Bay.
Noordin became director of the boarding school, which had 350 students at one point, after authorities said it would be shut down unless it had a Malaysian director, according to ICG. Authorities closed the school shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Noordin headed to Indonesia.
He settled with a friend from the school in Central Java, Indonesia's most populated island, where they ran a repair shop for automobile shock absorbers. From there he moved throughout the island and set up teams that bombed Jakarta's JW Marriot in 2003 and the Australian Embassy the next year, ICG said.
The FBI, which has been seeking information on Noordin, called him "an officer, recruiter, bombmaker and trainer" for JI who helped carry out three attacks in Indonesia between 2002 and 2004 that killed almost 300 people.
In 2004, Noordin began to split from JI's core leadership, many of whom were arrested or hiding from Indonesian authorities. He trained three suicide bombers before they carried out a 2005 attack in Bali that killed 20 other people.
Three other suspects were killed in the Sept. 17 raid, and three people arrested, police said. Police found documents, surveillance tools, firearms and 200 kilograms of explosives.
Noordin escaped raids on Aug. 8 in which three suspected militants were killed and a plot to bomb President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's residence was foiled, police said.
Noordin's death comes closely after other international victories against terrorists this month.
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was wanted by the FBI for questioning in attacks on a hotel and an airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002, was killed by US special forces in a commando raid in Somalia on Sept. 15.
In Pakistan, al-Qaeda's allies, the Taliban, have been retreating from an army offensive in the Swat valley. The army said on Wednesday that 54 terrorists had either been captured or surrendered in the preceding 24 hours, including leader Sher Muhammad Qasab.
The government says the Taliban are in disarray after losing control of Swat in June and suffering the death last month of Baitullah Mehsud, the movement's overall leader in Pakistan. Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike on his home in South Waziristan, the Taliban's biggest stronghold.