Two Indonesians detained for "terrorist" activities have said they recruited the suicide bomber who blew up a car at a luxury hotel in Jakarta, a senior police official said on Friday.

Initial investigations showed that Tuesday's blast, which killed 14 people at the US-run Marriott Hotel, could be linked to the shadowy Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant group, the national police chief said.

"It is certainly heading in that direction," General Da'i Bachtiar told a news conference when asked if JI was responsible.

The breakthrough in identifying the perpetrators came as President Megawati Sukarnoputri, in her first public comments on the attack, said the blast showed Southeast Asia's cooperation in the war on terror was inadequate.

The driver of the car, packed with explosives and fuel, was identified as Asmar Latin Sani, 28, from Lampung in the south of Sumatra island, Erwin Mappaseng, head of the police criminal investigation division, told reporters.

"He was known by two terrorist members who in the past we had arrested... He was certainly recruited by them," Mappaseng said.

He sidestepped questions on whether the two detainees were members of the JI network, which has been blamed in last year's Bali bombings and linked to al Qaeda, although he did use JI terminology to describe the role of the three men.

"He (Asmar) was certainly recruited by this group. And certainly from the Bali terrorist group and their friends. But I didn't say they were members of which wakalah," Mappaseng said, using the JI word for a state-level cell.

Mappaseng named the two "terrorist" detainees as Sardono Siliwangi and Mohammad Rais.

JOINING FORCES AGAINST TERROR

A day earlier, police released grisly photos of the reconstructed head of the suspected suicide bomber showing a youngish man with a small goatee beard.

Investigators have already highlighted similarities between Tuesday's bomb and the Bali nightclub blasts, particularly the composition of the explosives used in the latest strike.

A mobile phone was used to detonate the bomb, as in at least one of the Bali bombs. The Bali bombs were made from a cocktail made up essentially of potassium chlorate and TNT. Police said the Marriott bomb contained TNT and a "black powder."

Tuesday's attack followed a spate of global terror warnings, and officials have said they fear more strikes.

Addressing diplomats from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a public lecture in Jakarta, Megawati said no nation or group of countries could ever overcome the threat of international terrorism alone.

"Regional plans of action to tackle such problems had long been established as part and parcel of ASEAN's functional cooperation, but suddenly these appeared to be inadequate in the face of the cataclysms like terror attacks in the United States, Bali and a few days ago in the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta," Megawati said.

In keeping with her passive style, and as she did after the Bali bombings, Megawati has kept to the sidelines following the latest attack in the world's most populous Muslim nation and has left senior security officials to do the talking.

In her speech, she made no mention of the conviction and death sentence imposed on Thursday on the first of 38 Muslim militants on trial over Bali, which killed 202 people, mainly foreigners.

However, just days before the Marriott blast, she denounced what she called the "blind fanaticism" of the Bali bombers in some of her strongest comments yet on Islamic extremism.

"In Indonesia's view, which is shared by the rest of ASEAN members, it will take a global coalition involving all nations, all societies, religions and cultures to defeat this threat," Megawati said in her Friday address, speaking in English.

One foreigner, a Dutch banker, was among the 14 killed in the Marriott attack. Singaporeans, Americans, Australians and several New Zealanders were among the 152 injured.

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