Indonesia's chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that separatist rebels in troubled Aceh province are the country's greatest threat, well ahead of terrorists. "Our top national security priority is fighting armed separatisms in Indonesia and here the most serious military threats came from the armed rebels in Aceh," he told a conference in Canberra Thursday.

While there was also separatism in Papua province, this was "relatively minimal" as a military threat, he said, while Indonesians had even debated whether terrorism really existed in Indonesia at all.

Indonesia has declared martial law in Aceh and banned most foreigners from the Sumatran region. Its military is in a campaign to wipe out the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, who have been fighting for an independent state since 1976.

Yudhoyono said the government did not know how many terrorist cells might still be active in Indonesia, but said the recent bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, where 12 people were killed, had made the authorities more united.

"After the Marriott bombing we are more united," he said. "We remain concerned of the fact that we just do not know how many terrorist cells are out there and what is their capacity to attack." Yudhoyono ruled out closing down any of the Islamic schools accused of fomenting terrorism.

This weekend Yudhoyono, widely seen as a likely future president, will travel to Bali with Australian Prime Minister John Howard for commemorations of the first anniversary of the Bali bombings. President Megawati Sukarnoputri has refused to attend.

Yudhoyono added that next year's elections would likely raise the political temperature in Indonesia.