An explosion rocked the house of an Islamic militant near the Indonesian capital Jakarta yesterday but caused no casualties, local media said, amid heightened warnings of terrorist attacks in the country. El Shinta radio station said the blast was outside the home of an Islamic militant known as Abu Jibril, who is a friend of Abu Bakar Bashir, a cleric accused by Western governments of leading the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah militant network. It was not immediately clear whether Jibril was home at the time of the explosion, which police said left a 10-centimetre deep hole in the ground but caused no damage to the house.

“We don’t know whether it’s a bomb or a stove explosion. We are still investigating,” Lani, a police officer in the town of Pamulang, about 35 km (20 miles) south of Jakarta, said by telephone, adding that no one was hurt. Gas explosions are not uncommon in Indonesia. Police cordoned off the area, restricting media access to the blast site. On Monday, police said Islamic militants from Jemaah Islamiah, including wanted Malaysian bombmaker Azahari bin Husin, might be hiding on the outskirts of Jakarta. Azahari is a senior figure in Jemaah Islamiah.

Police have said Azahari is among the masterminds behind a series of bombings in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 202 people, the 2003 JW Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta which claimed 12 lives, and last year’s blast outside the Australian embassy that killed 10 people. Western countries and Indonesian police have all warned in recent weeks of possible terrorist attacks in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.