One of two men killed by police in last week in a raid on the suspected hideout of Noordin Mohammed Top was a bombmaker who probably assembled the bombs used in two recent attacks in Bali and Jakarta. He died with a bomb strapped to his chest.

Jabir, alias Gempur Budi Prakoso, who it appears enjoys the support of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, was shot dead on Saturday in a raid on a house in Wosonobo, central Java, and apparently learned his bombmaking skills from Azahari bin Husin. Azahari was killed during a police raid last year in Malang, East Java.

Jabir was close to Dr. Azahari and Noordin M. Top.

said Brigadier General Anton Bachrul Alam of the police. Jabir had also assembled the two powerful bombs found a day after the raid, Anton said.

Jabir, a graduate of the al Mukmin Islamic boarding school at Ngruki, is a cousin of the famed Faturrahman al-Ghozi, the Jemaah Islamiyah operative killed in the Philippines in 2003. He is known to have stayed with Azhari and learned from him until 5 July 2004 and later became an important member of Noordin’s inner circle, reportedly helping recruit the Bali II suicide bombers.

A day after Saturday’s predawn raid on the house, the counterterrorist squad, Detachment 88, found a high-explosive backpack bomb almost identical to the ones used in the last Bali bomb attacks on Oct. 1, in which 23 people died.

We also found a bomb strapped to Jabir’s chest. It was in a tupperware container, 30 x 30 cm’s, with two kg’s of gunpowder and four Paralon pipes packing the electronic detonator circuit. All of this was assembled by Jabir.

Jabir is also thought to have built the bomb used to outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004, which killed 11 people, Anton said.