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JAKARTA - Indonesian police arrested Thursday a suspected would-be suicide bomber trained by the group believed to be responsible for last week's deadly hotel attacks in Jakarta.
As police stepped up the hunt for alleged terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, a defiant President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the country's economic and democratic development would not be slowed by extremist violence.
Two suicide bombers killed seven people at the adjacent JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta Friday, the worst attack in the mainly Muslim archipelago since 2005.
Police said the man who was arrested in Cilacap district of Central Java province had confessed to being groomed as a suicide bomber by Noordin, state-run news agency Antara reported.
Malaysian-born Islamist Noordin, who is linked to Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), is accused of involvement in multiple attacks in Indonesia including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.
"Based on the explanation we've received, this person has admitted that they were recruited by Noordin M. Top to become the perpetrator of a suicide bomb," Central Java police chief Alex Bambang Riatmodjo was quoted as saying.
"Apart from that, we can't convey yet what location would have been the target of this man. What is clear is that he has admitted to all accusations."
Cilacap, near the prison where three of Bali bombers were executed late last year, has been a focus of the hunt for Noordin for the past two weeks.
A raid on one of his suspected hideouts there days before the July 17 bombings netted a homemade bomb "identical" to ones used in the hotel attacks and others blamed on the Noordin network, police said.
Police are also understood to have detained a woman in Cilacap suspected of being Noordin's third wife.
Yudhoyono said the country of 234 million people had to remain vigilant against further attacks.
"I'm sure we will find these perpetrators of terror. We'll also recover the national situation," he told reporters at Jakarta's international airport, referring to four years of growth and stability since the last major attack.
Three Australians, a Dutch couple, an Indonesian and a New Zealander have been confirmed killed in last week's blasts, which also injured 53 people, police said.
Digital sketches of two men believed to be the bombers were released Wednesday. Both were Asians with short hair and one, the Marriott bomber who killed five people, was aged just 16 to 17 years, police said.
Police deputy spokesman Sulistyo Ishak said police were searching for two Indonesian men, Nur Hasbi and Ibrahim, who might be able to provide information on the attacks.
Hasbi, otherwise known as Nur Said, is a known disciple of Noordin, while Ibrahim is believed to have worked at a florist at one of the hotels and has been missing since Friday.
"We want to know where they are, their roles or links to the perpetrators," Ishak told AFP.
JI analyst Noor Huda Ismail said Nur Hasbi had been a person of interest to police since 2006 and was seen as "Top's right-hand man."
Investigators have said the Marriott bomber checked into Room 1808 of the luxury hotel two days before the attacks, disguised as a guest.
A third, low-intensity bomb found in the room had been set to explode before the suicide blasts, but it had failed to go off, police confirmed Thursday.
Jemaah Islamiyah's ultimate goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines in an Islamic caliphate under strict sharia law.
Philippines National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said recent attacks on the southern island of Mindanao bore similarities to the Jakarta bombings.
- AFP/ir
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