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A shootout broke out on Friday as police and members of its anti-terror squad surrounded a house in a Central Java village where top terror suspect Noordin M. Top is believed to have been holing up, residents and police said.

A National Police source who asked not to be identified told the Jakarta Globe that Noordin is inside the house. The source also said there is a possibility that Noordin is alone and suffering from one or more gunshot wounds. Police believe Noordin is armed with a gun, grenades and bombs.

The source added that Noordin will not give up without a fight. He said police had been monitoring the house since before the Jakarta hotel bombings last month. However, only recently were they able to confirm that Noordin was there.

The owner of the house, Mohdari, was the first to be arrested, just after Friday prayers. "At around 3 p.m. we arrested two other suspects, Indra and Aris, who also lived at the house," the source said.

"Indra and Aris often take Noordin around on their motorbikes. Aris confirmed that Noordin was hiding at their home."

The source said based on police surveillance, only Noordin and the other three men live at the house, which led police to believe he may be alone.

National Police spokesman Nanan Soekarna, talking to journalists at the National Police headquarters here, declined to confirm whether Noordin was in the house.

Shots rang out when police began to move on the house near rice fields in Beji hamlet in the Kedu sub-district of Temanggung, Central Java just after 4 p.m., a resident said.

Heavy shooting between officers and the people inside the house kept up from 5 to 6 pm, a villager named Slamet told the Jakarta Globe. After that, sporadic firing was heard until 10:00.

A source at the police Detachment 88 anti-terror team said more than 150 officers were deployed in the operation.

Noordin, a Malaysian national, has topped the country’s most-wanted list ever since the 2002 bombing attacks that killed 202 people. He is suspected of masterminding those attacks. Noordin and his compatriot Azahari Husin are also believed to have been behind a series of bombings in the following years, including another in Bali in 2005 and suicide bombings against the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003 and the Australian embassy in 2004.

Azahari was killed during a police raid on his hideout in Batu, East Java in November 2005. Noordin has had several near arrests but remains on the run. Police now believe he was connected with the Jakarta hotel bombings that killed 9 people last month.

Police in July raided a house in Cilacap, Central Java belonging to the father of a woman Noordin is believed to have married. Police found bomb making materials and equipment buried in the house’s backyard.

The area surrounding the besieged house has been cleared to protect local residents. But live TV coverage showed curious onlookers crowding at the perimiters of the scene.

Slamet, the local resident, said that he recognized one of the anti-terror forces as a man who had recently been selling meatballs from a cart in the area.

He said he himself knew the inhabitants of the house casually: ‘We would go to the mosque together to pray.”