Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Jakarta – Vexed by assertions that international terrorists may have burrowed into Indonesia, Vice President Hamzah Haz decided to find out for himself – by hosting a dinner at his house for the country's Islamic extremist A-list.

Among those invited was Abubakar Baasyir, a cleric alleged to be the ideological leader of an al Qaeda-linked organization that plotted to blow up several Western embassies in Singapore with truck bombs.

Jafar Umar Thalib, whose Laskar Jihad militia has fought to evict Christians and implement Islamic law in the Moluccas islands, also was in attendance. So was Al-Habib Muhammad Rizieq bin Hussein Syihab, the leader of a group that threatened to forcibly expel Americans from Indonesia after the United States started bombing Afghanistan last year.

Haz, who leads Indonesia's largest Muslim political party, said the four-hour discussion over dinner in late March reinforced what he suspected, leaving him "certain that there are no terrorists in Indonesia."

"They only want to see that Indonesia has a religious society," Haz said in a recent interview. "None of them have an extreme character."

Although the vice presidency is a largely ceremonial office in Indonesia, Haz's opinions about Islamic radicalism are politically significant. Since September 11, he has emerged as one of the most influential architects of the government's approach to dealing with terrorism, a role that has troubled the United States and some of Indonesia's neighbors.

Indonesian officials and Western diplomats said Haz has counseled President Megawati Sukarnoputri to move cautiously in rounding up alleged terrorists and clamping down on extremist groups, arguing that such actions require not just suspicions but incontrovertible proof of wrongdoing, which the country's intelligence service lacks.

Thus far, Megawati appears to be heeding that message. Despite requests from the governments of Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesian authorities have opted not to arrest Baasyir, who runs a large religious school where he lionizes Osama bin Laden and preaches about the importance of fighting holy wars. Government officials said they do not have evidence indicating he has broken Indonesian laws.

"There are some in the government who want to take firm steps against some of these groups," said a senior Indonesian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But there are others, including the vice president, who are telling the president to be careful, not to go too fast."

Indonesia's reluctance to rein in extremists and detain suspected terrorists has prompted concern in Washington and neighboring Asian capitals that the world's most populous Muslim country could become a base from which to plot new attacks. Although Western diplomats here said they respected Indonesia's insistence on having evidence before making arrests, they question whether authorities have been looking hard enough.

"They're not really at the point where they see international terrorism as a big problem for them," a senior US official said.

Political analysts said that despite preaching prudence to Megawati, Haz, 62, a career politician from the Indonesian half of the island of Borneo, has shaped anti-terror policy more by what he has not said than by what he has.

Because Megawati is not regarded as sufficiently devout by conservative Muslims, she views Haz's support as crucial to neutralize the backlash from a crackdown on hard-line groups, the analysts said. "But he's refused to give her the green light, and she's uncomfortable to proceed without that backing," said Jusuf Wanandi, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group in Jakarta.

"He's the ballast in Indonesia's fight against terror," said a Western diplomat here. "He's not playing a helpful role."

Since taking office last July, Megawati has spent relatively little time reaching out to conservative Muslim groups, leaving that task to Haz, Wanandi said. "She's let him set the agenda with the Muslims," he said. "She hasn't reined him in."

Haz said he does not condone terrorism, but added that he does not regard radical groups as worthy of automatic suspicion. Among senior government officials, he has some of the most sympathetic attitudes toward the activities of Baasyir and other hard-line Muslim figures.

Haz said his stance was shaped by 32 years of dictatorship under former president Suharto, when scores of Muslim leaders were jailed on trumped-up subversion charges. "We are living in an era of human rights and supremacy of the law," he said. "In the past, you could arrest people just like that. Now we can't do that anymore."

Haz said there are "probably only one or two" hard-line Islamic leaders in Indonesia. "But none of them has an organized network with a power to create chaos and cause instability," he said. "There is no such thing."

Jafar, the Laskar Jihad leader, said he appreciated the opportunity to talk to the vice president. "He asked us directly whether we were terrorists," Jafar said. "Then, he discussed the issue with us."

Police arrested Jafar earlier this month on charges that he ordered an attack on a Christian village in the Moluccas in which 12 people were killed. Haz visited Jafar in his jail cell to "offer sympathy" as a "Muslim brother."

Haz first riled US officials a few days after September 11, when he told worshipers at a Jakarta mosque that the attacks in New York and Washington "will cleanse the sins of the United States." In the interview, he insisted the quote was taken out of context. He said he was not condoning terrorism but simply looking at the tragedy as a devout Muslim would.

"As a Muslim, if we face a misfortune or we are in an accident, we still have to thank God," he said. "The misfortune will cleanse our sins. That is the context of the quote."

Haz, who wears a fez-like prayer hat made of black felt, prays several times a day. He has two wives who have official security details and attend government functions. Local media organizations have reported that he also has two other wives, a subject upon which he would not comment. "It's between me and God," he said.

Haz is widely expected to vie for the presidency during the country's next general elections, in 2004. Analysts said that although they do not think he will get a majority, he could emerge as a strong contender to represent a coalition of Muslim parties.

In 1999, he lost the vice presidency to Megawati when she lost the presidency to Abdurraham Wahid. Her party had received the most votes, but Haz and other Muslim leaders opposed her becoming president because they did not believe a woman should serve in that role. After parliament dismissed Wahid last year, a decision that improved Haz's chances of gaining the vice presidency, he dropped his opposition to Megawati's ascension.

Haz's rise to power illustrates the growing clout of Muslim-oriented political parties since Suharto stepped down in 1998. Although the platforms of the Muslim parties, which collectively control about one-fourth of the seats in parliament, are in many ways identical to those of their secular rivals, particularly on economic and security issues, they have a markedly different social agenda. Several of them want to transform Indonesia into a strict Islamic nation, replacing the country's secular legal system with Islamic sharia law.

Several radical Islamic leaders have been critical of Haz, saying he has not pushed forcefully enough for sharia since becoming vice president, a shift that appears to have been calculated to improve his popularity.

Haz denied backing down from his support for sharia, but he said he wants it implemented not by vigilantes but by parliament. "It is the obligation of Muslim parties to struggle for matters related to Islamic laws and values," he said. "Of course we want to implement Islamic regulations. But in our struggle we have to be realistic. We have to see whether the struggle is possible constitutionally and democratically. We don't want to create any instability."