Indonesian police have arrested three more Islamic militants alleged to have links with a Malaysian extremist accused of masterminding the bombings on the island of Bali, reports said Thursday.

Police arrested Joko Wibowo, 25, in the Central Javan town of Karanganyar, the state Antara news agency said, citing police who said he was a close friend of fugitive Noordin Muhammad Top.

Noordin was a key leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah extremist network blamed for attacks in Bali late last year and in October 2002, as well as a string of bombings in Southeast Asia.

Wibowo was also said to be close to Subur Sugiarto, who was nabbed by elite anti-terrorist police on Wednesday in Boyolali, also in Central Java, while he was on a bus to Jakarta, the Kompas daily reported.

ElShinta radio said Sugiarto was a Muslim teacher who had blessed and encouraged the three suicide bombers who blew up restaurants in Bali last October, killing 20 bystanders.

Anti-terrorist police have meanwhile also arrested Ibnu Pramono, 30, at his home in Central Java's Semarang, several reports said.

Pramono's brother-in-law told ElShinta the arrest warrant alleged Pramono had regularly lent his motorcycle to both Sugiarto and Noordin.

Experts believe Noordin and fellow Malaysian Azahari Husin, who was killed by police in a raid on his hideout in Java in November last year, may have split from JI to form a more radical off-shoot.

Azahari was tracked down weeks after the latest Bali attracks.

Home raided

Contacted by AFP, national and local police declined to confirm the two new arrests.

The latest reported arrests come a few days after police caught four other people suspected of helping Noordin evade capture. The four were caught in separate raids in Semarang and nearby Klaten on January 13.

Police raided Sugiarto's Semarang home in November, uncovering bomb-making manuals as well as documents that led to his name being added to a list of terror suspects, reports said at the time.

The Semarang-based Suara Merdeka newspaper said without quoting sources that Sugiarto was thought to have received training in bomb-making from Azahari.