One of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorists, a fugitive Islamist leader held responsible for organising the deadliest attacks in Indonesia, was killed during a six-hour shootout in central Java early on Thursday, the Indonesian police said.

The police said four men had been killed in the shootout, and a fingerprint match showed one was the wanted man, Noordin Muhammad Top, 41. They said DNA testing was under way for final confirmation.

“We are sure Noordin M Top has been killed,” the national police chief, Bambang Hendarso Danuri, said at a news conference. “In this holy month of Ramzan, the country of Indonesia has been blessed.”

Top was suspected of organising attacks in 2003 and 2004 on the JW Marriott Hotel and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta; suicide bombings in Bali in 2005, which killed more than 20; and suicide bombings in July on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, which killed seven people, six of them foreigners.

Police and security forces had been searching for Noordin for nearly 10 years. The raid on the house, in the town of Solo, began late on Wednesday, the police said, after two suspects who had just been arrested told them where to find several terrorists. The police did not know beforehand if Noordin was among them.

The police said that about four hours into the assault, there was a large explosion inside the house, possibly a suicide bomb, which may have killed four men who were killed. Three people who survived were arrested.

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