Troops have checked at least two reported sightings but failed to find Dulmatin on southern Jolo island after the military reported last month that marines dug up his suspected body in nearby Tawi-Tawi province, police said.

US, Australian, Philippine and Indonesian experts have been conducting DNA tests on the body, which bore gunshot wounds and resembled Dulmatin, for more than a month and were expected to announce the results soon.

Dulmatin, identified by his wife as Ammar Usman, is believed to be a master bomb-maker of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah militant group.

He allegedly fled to the southern Philippines in 2003 to escape a massive manhunt after the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people in South-east Asia's worst terror attack.

An Indonesian police spokesman, Brig Gen Anton Bachrul Alam, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying Monday that the exhumed body was not Dulmatin's.

An Indonesian police team helped conduct the DNA tests and has returned home from the Philippines, he said.

But Philippine National Police Chief Avelino Razon said he could not confirm Bachrul Alam's claim because US experts have not yet provided official DNA test results.

His statement was backed up by Rebecca Thompson, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Manila, who said the final results were not in.

A regional police chief, Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal, said the military and police manhunt for Dulmatin has continued.

'Our assumption is that he's still there until a final conclusive test would tell us that he's been neutralised,'Mr Caringal said.

US counterterrorism troops have been providing intelligence and surveillance assistance to their Filipino counterparts tracking down Dulmatin, and local Abu Sayyaf militants who have allegedly provided him with jungle sanctuary in the country's restive south, police and military officials said.

Washington has offered a US$10 million (S$13.8 million) reward for the capture of Dulmatin, who allegedly trained Filipino militants in bomb-making and helped plot attacks in the Philippines, a close US ally. -- AP