An early morning raid on a militant hideout killed Noordin Mohammad Top, Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorist and the leader of an Islamist faction suspected of plotting terrorist attacks across the region, Indonesian police sources said on Thursday.

Indonesian police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri confirmed that Top was among the four dead following a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. “The details are with national police headquarters,” Danuri added.

Police stormed the rented house being used as a hideout just outside Solo City in Central Java at around 2 am Paris time (GMT+2) following a nine-hour siege.

"For the police, this is a huge victory," says FRANCE 24 correspondent Solenn Honorine, reporting from Jakarta. "They have captured their nemesis."

A Malaysian national, the 41-year-old Noordin is the leader of a militant group known as “Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago”, a more violent splinter group of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group suspected of planning a spate of deadly attacks across Asia including the July 17 suicide bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the capital, Jakarta. The attacks left a total of nine people dead, including six foreigners and the two suicide bombers.

Noordin is also suspected of planning an earlier attack on the Jakarta Marriott in 2003, on the Australian embassy in Indonesia in 2004 and a series of bombings on the island of Bali in 2005 that targeted foreign tourists.

His death will likely take at least some of the fight out of Asia's terrorist cells. As a gifted recruiter of young militants, Noordin was "charismatic and held huge sway over young radicals who idealised him, especially because he managed to narrowly escape being caught several times", says Honorine.

His death shows that the mysterious mastermind is not so invincible after all.

Local media reported that those killed in the raid on Thursday included Bagus Budi Pranoto, alias Urwah, who was one of the suspects wanted by police in connection with the July hotel bombings. A police source told Reuters that a suspected bomb expert known as "Aji" was also one of those killed.

Police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said three people had also been captured, including the wife of the man renting the house and two others detained ahead of the police operation.

Noordin, who avoided using mobile phones to escape detection, had eluded police for years and had a bounty of more than $100,000 on his head. He was erroneously reported killed on August 8 after a 17-hour police raid on a safehouse in Temanggung in Central Java.

A cache of grenades was found in the house as well as eight sacks containing explosives, Soekarna told AFP.