Markus Junianto Sihaloho – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the Indonesian Armed Forces to deploy personnel down to the village level to help prevent of further terrorism attacks following last week's hotel bombings, Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Christian Zebua said Thursday.

Zebua said the Army would assign more than 40,000 soldiers to the subdistrict level at Village Guidance Boards (Babinsa), to monitor village-level activity to deter terrorist threats.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Agustadi Sasongko Purnomo had earlier said the program would be coordinated through the military's antiterror desks at 12 commands across the country.

A pervasive military intelligence system was abandoned in the wake of former dictator Suharto's downfall and plans to reinstate it after the 2002 Bali bombings were never followed through on.

The plans were described by analysts at the time as an admission of sorts by Yudhoyono, who was in charge of security affairs at the time, that the National Police – which separated from the military in 1998 – could not deal with terrorist threats.

Human rights groups said the planned measures could result in human rights abuses by the Armed Forces.

Zebua confirmed that in 2005, Yudhoyono had given the orders to establish the antiterror desks during a private meeting with then Armed Forces Chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, but the plan was effectively put on the back burner because the main concern at the time had been increasing the professionalism of the military.

"Now we want to be more active in tackling terror threats through this program, and the president has ordered us to do so after the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton attacks," he said.

Zebua said the Babinsa personnel would be used to collect information, enhance communications with the public, and report any threats to local police. "We really hope that citizens can support us by reporting any strangers entering their areas," he said.

Zebua said the budget would be sourced from the military's routine operational and community development funds.

Military analyst Andi Widjajanto said the information gathering operations would overlap with the duties of the police and National Intelligence Agency (BIN) unless a "redundancy principle" was used.

"The redundancy principle is just like three Air Force radars observing the same area. When one of the radars malfunctions, then the other two would directly replace its function," he said. "So security officers must coordinate and assist each other. Without such a pattern, it would be useless."

Andi suggested the military endorse specific regulations for Babinsa personnel to prevent any overlap in duties. "The regulations must specify that law enforcement is still the task of police officers, while collecting information is the main task of BIN officers," he said.

Zebua said any information obtained by the Babinsa personnel would be reported to other security officers to "build and provide richer information" and any action based on that information would be conducted by the police.

Agustadi said the antiterror desks would also report back directly to the Army and Armed Forces chiefs.