A leading Southeast Asian terrorist suspect reportedly killed Saturday in a gun battle with police at a village hide-out was planning a suicide car bomb attack on Indonesia's president, the national police chief said.

But, police said they could not confirm that the body recovered from the house in central Java was that of Noordin M Top until DNA tests are complete.

"We could not yet disclose the identity of the killed man," National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said at a news conference. "After the DNA test, we will announce it, based on facts, not based on speculation."

Bambang said Noordin and other militants had been plotting to bomb the home of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Police on Saturday also raided a house on the outskirts of Jakarta where they killed two suspected militants and seized bombs and a car rigged to carry them, the police chief said. The house is five kilometers from the president's residence.

He said the decision to attack Yudhoyono was made at an April 30 meeting led personally by Noordin because of the government's decision to execute the three convicted Bali bombers.

Yudhoyono told reporters he had been briefed about an ongoing operation "to uphold law and to eradicate terrorism," but made no mention of Noordin. "I extend my highest gratitude and respect to the police for their brilliant achievement in this operation," he said.

Noordin is also suspected of planning last month's suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed seven people and ended a four-year pause in terror strikes in Indonesia.

Officers surrounded the Central Java house late Friday after making arrests in a nearby town. At one point, they sent remote-controlled robots into the isolated building to search for bombs.

Local TV stations reported that Noordin was killed in the 16-hour siege. The remains of a man thought to be Noordin were flown from the location to Jakarta for an autopsy.

"If Noordin M Top was captured or killed, this would be extremely good news and a huge step forward for Indonesia's struggle against terrorism," said Jim Della-Giacoma, Southeast Asia project director for the International Crisis Group think tank. "Whether or not the risk of further attacks declines depends on who else is arrested or killed with Noordin."

However, Al Jazeera television has reported that the body was not Noordin.

"He's not yet dead, in fact DNA tests prove that the body that was recovered was not of Noordin Mohammed Top," Rohan Gunaratna, the head of the Singapore-based center for violence and terrorism, told Al Jazeera.

"But it is very likely that he will be hunted down in the next few days," he added, citing police sources.

A leading expert on terrorism, Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, said she doubted local reports that Noordin had been killed. "What we do know is that the police intercepted this likely attack, and they get incredible kudos for that," Jones said, referring to the assassination attempt.

But as to the raid, she said: "What I'm pretty convinced of is that the person inside the house was not Noordin Top and the person who was killed was not Noordin Top."

Noordin is also believed to have orchestrated an earlier attack on the JW Marriott Hotel in 2003 and a massive suicide truck bombing outside the Australian Embassy in 2004 which together killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

Those early attacks were blamed on the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah and funded by al-Qaida, but Noordin later broke away to form a more violent offshoot that supported targeting civilians. His foreign connections have since became uncertain. (AP, New York Times, JG)