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uthorities have said the recent hotel bombings and subsequent police raids in Temanggung, Central Java and Jatiasih, Bekasi, were evidence that terrorist groups represent an escalating threat.

With the country's most wanted terrorist, Noordin M. Top, still on the lose and dozens of his supporters across Java apparently able to keep him hidden, another bomb attack from his Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) faction remains a serious threat.

Police and Indonesian military (TNI) officials said Thursday that the fight against terrorism needed stronger legal framework and the increased involvement of the military.

Human rights activists, however, have slammed the authority's proposal - which would give the police and the TNI the right to arrest people at will and detain them for as long as they want - saying they allow for serious violations of human rights and hark back to the repression of the New Order era.

The Anti-Subversion Law was routinely used during the Soeharto era by intelligence officers and the military to apprehend people suspected of being involved in "terrorism".

National police spokesman Insp. Gen. Nanan Soekarna said here Thursday that Indonesia should have regulations that authorize security officials to apprehend and detain anyone who has colluded in any way with terrorist groups.

Although current laws allow the police to detain terror suspects for up to seven days without an arrest warrant, police are frustrated as they can not arrest clerics like Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, leader of the Ngruki boarding school, who police said has clearly incited violence.

Nana then cited the fact that neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore, which have such strong laws, have managed to eradicate terrorism.

"The terrorists don't have the opportunity to live in their countries," he said recently.

Malaysia and Singapore are seen to have been quite successful in ridding their backyards of terrorism, thanks to the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows their security officers to apprehend people they believed have links with terrorism.

TNI chief General Djoko Santoso went even further, saying the military would intensify anticipatory measures against terrorism right down to the village level.

"We have adopted three strategies to fight terrorism, namely early detection, preventive measures and action," he said Tuesday, adding that territorial commands in each region will handle the tasks.

Right activist Hendardi, however, rejects the idea that terrorists still operate because Indonesia lacks strong enough laws to stop them, saying that it was an old song played by security officials whenever their failure is publicly spot lighted.

"Improve the intelligence squads by empowering them with the skills needed to fight terrorism in the future. This is more important than amending regulation that in the end will only spark human right violations," he said.

A man killed in police raids last week turned out not to be Noordin, as the police had originally thought.