Indonesia is to reinforce its military presence in the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh, even as peace talks with separatist rebels in the province make progress, an army spokesman said.

The military, which continues to pursue the rebels despite pleas for a ceasefire, will send three battalions, or up to three thousand men, as part of a wider deployment to shore up its presence in troubled areas of the country.

Three battalions will also be sent to remote eastern Papua province, at the other end of the archipelago to Aceh, where separatists are also a headache, and one will head to central Sulwawesi island, a hotbed of sectarian violence.

"The seven battalions are in the process of being formed and prepared and they will be considered as permanent local battalions," army spokesman Colonel Hotmangaraja Panjaitan told AFP. "These reinforcement are aimed at restoring security stability in these conflict areas," he said.

Aceh has been the battleground between government and armed rebels since 1976 when the Free Aceh Movement launched its campaign for independence, angered by what it said was Jakarta's exploitation of the province's resources.

The conflict, which has claimed 12,000 lives, was stepped up in May 2003 after a peace deal collapsed prompting the government to begin a major military operation to crush the rebels, placing Aceh under temporary martial rule.

After the December 26 tsunami, which devastated Aceh, both sides have agreed to return to the negotiating table and peace talks are currently under way in Helsinki.

In Papua, the Free Papua Organisation has been waging a low-intensity warfare since the 1960s, but the movement is poorly armed and split into several small fractions with poor coordination between them.

Sulawesi's Poso region has seen years of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians since 2000. Although the government brokered a peace deal in 2001, sporadic attacks, including shootings and bombings, have continued.