JAKARTA - JAKARTA'S police chief said several suspects in the bombing of the Marriott were staying at the hotel.

Maj. Gen. Wahyono said the suspects stayed on the 18th floor of the hotel where un-detonated explosives were found after Friday's twin explosions at the J.W. Marriott and neighboring Ritz-Carlton.

Maj. Wahyono told reporters, 'There were several perpetrators.'

'They were disguised as guests and stayed in room 1808.'

He said the attacks killed 8 and wounded 50, including 18 foreigners. Earlier the security minister said nine people died, but that number was later revised by authorities.

It was the first major terror strike in Indonesia since three suicide bombers hit restaurants on the resort island of Bali nearly four years ago.

Indonesian police are looking at possible links between Friday's deadly twin bombings on luxury hotels in downtown

Jakarta and wanted Malaysian-born Islamic extremist Noordin Mohammed Top.

The bombs tore through a restaurant and carpark in the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott hotels around 8 am as guests were having breakfast.

A senior official said police had found a third, unexploded bomb in a room at the Marriott described as a 'control centre' for the attacks, the deadliest in Indonesia since 2005.

The room contained explosive chemicals and bomb-making materials, he said, a likely treasure trove for Indonesian police to examine along with their Australian and US counterparts.

'The control centre was a room at the JW Marriott, room number 1808, where anti-terror police found explosive materials and an unexploded bomb,' Djali Yusuf, a senior advisor to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told AFP.

The bomb was defused as police searched the hotel following the bombing in its basement, which killed seven people. Twelve people died in a bombing of the

Marriott in 2003 which was blamed on the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network. Police have not said who they believe was responsible for the attacks and no group has claimed responsibility, but senior sources in the counter-terrorism unit said they bore all the hallmarks of master bombmaker Noordin.

The former accountant is the chief ideologue of the most violent wing of Jemaah Islamiyah and is wanted for his alleged role in several attacks including the bombings that killed 202 people in Bali in 2002.

Unconfirmed reports in the Indonesian media earlier this week said police had raided an Islamic school in Cilacap, Central Java, in search of Noordin but the extremist was nowhere to be found.

'If it was a suicide bombing, then it's certainly a possibility that this was done by Noordin's network,' International Crisis Group think-tank terrorism analyst Sidney Jones said. 'Noordin is no longer acting in the name of JI. He's a splinter of JI,' she said.

Police said the bombs used in Friday's attacks were homemade and they suspected at least one - the device used in the carpark basement of the Marriott - was triggered by a suicide bomber. -- AP, AFP.