Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – As the Indonesian government considers extending a civil emergency for the strife-torn region of the Malukus, local groups warn that fresh violence could erupt at any time.

Although violence in the territory has subsided in the past few weeks many of the residents of Ambon, South Maluku, say the two-month civilian emergency has had minimal impact on the conflict.

On Sunday President Abdurrahman Wahid ordered his new co-ordinating Minister for Security and Social Affairs, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and Regional Autonomy Minister Suryadi Sudirja, to consider whether to extend the civilian emergency, which was implemented in order to stem the escalating violence in the region.

While violence in the province continued unabated with several people being killed in the fighting for the first six weeks of the emergency, clashes have subsided recently.

And Muslim groups have been more confident the civil emergency will reduce the likelihood of further violence. Amir Hamzah, a Muslim leader who heads a Muslim-Christian reconciliation team, said that violence had largely subsided. "If there are attacks, they are due to miscommunication," he said.

However, an aid worker said nobody was reassured by the relative calm in Ambon city. "There is very little illusion or doubt about what has happened, everybody believes the calm is temporary," said the aid worker who feared further outbreaks of fighting because both sides had become increasingly well armed over the last few months.

Lawyer Semmy Weileruny of the Maranthea Church in Ambon city said that violence had subsided since August 7, but this was not due to the civilian emergency, but because of international pressure.

Analysts have speculated that Maluku's relative calm over the past month has been due to the armed forces' quiet campaign to send the Muslim radicals, Laskar Jihad, back to Java. However, Mr Semmy said Christians still feared more attacks from Muslims as the leader of the Laskar Jihad on Sunday called for Muslims to continue fighting and had also threatened fresh attacks last Tuesday. Christian groups say that while 300 Laskar members have been expelled, at least 1,000 Laskar Jihad members had arrived in Ambon, in the last two months.

Meanwhile, the removal of troops has also failed to reassure locals that those remaining will be neutral in the face of strong fighting, said the aid worker. Diplomats say that unless the cost-saving practice of billeting troops with both Christian and Muslim families is stopped they will continue to fight for whichever group feeds them.

At the start of the civilian emergency military leaders' claims that troops were behaving more neutrally were embarrassingly disproven when an American television journalist filmed the armed forces supporting an attack on a village. Meanwhile, Christians are still calling for international intervention while Jakarta has firmly rejected the possibility.