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President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (news - web sites) said the killing of fugitive Indonesian militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi Sunday after what officials called a shoot-out in the Mindanao region showed that "terrorists" would never succeed in the Philippines.

Officials said al-Ghozi, a senior leader of the Jemaah Islamiah group and one of the most wanted men in Asia since escaping from a Manila prison in July, was killed after opening fire on police and troops who stopped the van he was in.

Television broadcast grisly images of a body in a morgue dressed only in underwear and surrounded by security officials.

But police officers and residents in the southern town where the killing took place said there was no sign of a firefight, fueling rumors al-Ghozi had already been captured and then killed at the best time to boost Manila's anti-terror image.

Even politicians in Arroyo's administration voiced doubt.

"It's too good to be true," said Senator Ramon Magsaysay, chairman of the National Committee on defense and security.

"After 90 days of intense search for him he suddenly gets killed in a supposed shoot-out. This only confirms earlier reports that al-Ghozi has long been in the hands of the military and when the right time came he had to be sacrificed."

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