Jakarta – Indonesian authorities are planning to launch "limited security operations" against separatist rebels in the troubled province of Aceh, Defence Minister Muhammad Mahfud said Tuesday.

Mahfud's statement came after he met with President Abdurrahman Wahid at the Merdeka Palace, and a day after the cabinet officially slapped the "separatist" tag on the Aceh Merdeka Movement (GAM) which has been fighting for a free Islamic state there since the mid 1970s.

It appeared to spell an end to an effort by Wahid's administration to broker a political agreement with the GAM through talks which involved a series of shaky truces.

"The government has already ruled that GAM is a separatist [movement] and in legal terms it is of a subversive nature," Mahfud said, adding that concrete steps to face the separatists in Aceh were being formulated. "Security operations will immediately be conducted there," he added.

He said the operations will be "limited," and added that they would not take the form of the harsh anti-rebel military drive, known as Military Operation Zone (DOM), imposed in Aceh for nine years until August 1998.

"I can guarantee that there will be no more DOM for Aceh. GAM is too small to be handled with DOM," Mahfud said. The minister added that under the limited security operations, care would be taken to separate active GAM members from civilians.

The DOM had been widely criticized by human rights activists here and abroad for indiscriminate military violence and gross human rights violations. Thousands of Acehnese were killed and thousands of others maimed or injured during the DOM period.

Mahfud said that the government would also issue an amnesty for all GAM members who leave the organization and pledge loyalty to the Republic of Indonesia.

He did not elaborate, saying that the steps, currently being prepared by office of the coordinating minister for politics, social and security affairs, would include comprehensive socio-cultural and military approaches.

GAM representatives entered talks with the Indonesian government in Geneva last year and agreed on consecutive but shaky truce periods. Despite the current truce, more than 200 people have been killed in violence in the province this year.

The two sides remain politically far apart, with GAM demanding independence and Jakarta saying it will grant only limited autonomy.