Malang, Indonesia ? One of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorists blew himself up Wednesday to escape capture when an elite security unit attacked his hideout, Indonesia’s president said. Two other suspected militants were thought killed in the blast.

Known as the “Demolition Man” for his expertise with explosives, Azahari bin Husin was a key figure in Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist network with links to al-Qaida that has been blamed for a series of deadly bombings as well as failed plots in Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.

His death was a blow to the group, which former members say is motivated by anger at U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world and a desire to establish an Islamic state across the region.

But security experts cautioned that Jemaah Islamiyah would remain capable of staging attacks. They said at least four of its senior leaders were at large in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters in Jakarta that police were “certain” that Azahari was among the dead men, but that DNA and fingerprint samples would be taken from him and the two other men to confirm their identities.

An elite U.S-trained police unit raided Azahari’s safe house in Malang in east Java province on Wednesday. Officers said he and two other militants there blew themselves up to avoid capture as the heavily armed officers moved in.

Soon after sunrise today, bomb squad officers in protective suits searched the badly damaged and bullet-marked house in Malang, east Java. The three bodies remained inside.

Officers found 30 bombs in the rented house that were “primed to explode,” police chief Gen. Sutanto said, without elaborating.