The nation's best strategy in its battle against terrorism would be to increase the capacity of civilian law enforcement and not provide more authority to military or intelligence agencies, the International Crisis Group said on Thursday.

In a briefing titled "Indonesia: Noordin Top's Support Base," ICG said that simply creating a new coordinating body as some have called for, or strengthen existing ones, would not do the trick.

"While there is a justification for greater information-sharing, there is none at all for giving more authority to the military or intelligence agencies to arrest or interrogate suspects," the paper said.

The Indonesian Armed Forces has said that in line with a 2005 presidential instruction, the military was now reactivating "antiterrorism desks" in the region, down to the village level. Although the top brass have assured the public repeatedly that those desk would merely be information gathering as well as monitoring centers, public worries persist that they may represent a return to the era where military involvement in domestic security was all pervasive under the iron-fisted rule of President Suharto.

"One of the great strengths of Indonesia's counterterrorism program is that it is a civilian law enforcement effort, not a war, and it should stay that way," ICG said.

However, it also pointed to the necessity to build up a greater research and analysis capacity for the police, not only in Jakarta but also in the field.

The local police and community leaders, ICG said, needed to learn much more than they know now about the radical groups operating in their areas and what danger signs to look for.

The ICG said the idea that police should listen to what Immas are saying was the wrong approach. Such monitoring, the ICG believed, could be assumed by the local community leaders.

"Community leaders at the village and hamlet levels need to know not just what messages are being delivered, but also to whom and in what context," it said, adding that a Friday sermon at a crowded mosque may be less dangerous than the same message delivered in a study group to a small group of teenagers.

The report said terrorists now relied on a more systematic recruitment of foot soldiers by the inner circle of top wanted fugitive terrorist Noordin M Top – blamed for series of bomb attacks in the countries since 2002 – rather than by Noordin himself.

"They recruit new youths as needed through study sessions in local mosques, or pick up young men radicalized through earlier exposure to jihadi preachers but then were left behind when those preachers move on or are arrested," it said.

The authorities, ICG said, should also improve monitoring programs of convicted terror suspects before and after their release, including who visited them, what materials they read, and what kind of meetings they have with other prisoners.

"Prisoners provide a wealth of intelligence-gathering opportunities that Indonesian authorities need to take better advantage of," the ICG report said.