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JAKARTA - Senior defence sources here revival soon of a strategic alliance between the US and Indonesia, with the administration of President George W. Bush eager to restore military links largely to help combat terrorism. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is moving to reinstate US military training assistance for Indonesia, an important step towards restoring full military ties.

Formal US military relations with Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim nation, were cut more than a decade ago because of allegations of human rights violations by Indonesian forces. The Bush administration has run into a reluctant Congress.

Ms Rice, however, testifying on Feb. 17 before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the proposed 2006 budget, expressed confidence the move would go through. She said: "I do believe the time may have come to do that".

The world's largest exporter of LNG, Indonesia has become a net oil importers consuming about 1.2 million b/d but producing only about 950,000 b/d. In view of this, its leadership is considering leaving OPEC (see survey of Indonesia in this week's APS Review).

The aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, recently wrapped up a month-long emergency relief mission and left the waters off Indonesia's tsunami-afflicted Aceh Province, on the island of Sumatra. But left in the Lincoln's wake are ripples of interest in both the US and Indonesia for a return to closer ties.

In Indonesia, the month-long US presence has helped to polish America's image, which political observers say had been tarnished by the war in Iraq. The Christian Science Monitor on Feb. 9 quoted Ulil Abshar Abdalla, an Islamic scholar and liberal Muslim activist, as saying: "The tsunami in Aceh showed that people in the West were serious in giving aid to Muslim counties. It will shift perceptions of the West as a bloc".

Prominent Islamic leaders thanked US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz at a meeting at the US Ambassador's residence in Jakarta. Ulil said: "It was the first time, I'd heard [the Islamic leaders] say thanks. It made me very happy".

Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Indonesia, is among those calling for closer military ties with the world's largest Muslim country. Speaking to reporters in Jakarta in January, Wolfowitz said: "We would also like to see how the TNI [the Indonesian military] has endeavoured to put itself under the control of civilian supremacy".

Supporters of mending the 13-year rift with Indonesia's military argue that it could be a more central ally in the war on terrorists, including South-East Asian groups linked to Al-Qaeda.

Indonesia's naval forces are of vital importance and need to be upgraded. They police the Straits of Malacca, a major world shipping lane and a lifeline for energy consumers in the Far East. The Straits are prone to pirate attacks, and, intelligence agents say, possibly a major marine terrorist attack.

Critics claim the Indonesian military establishment has not done enough to reform itself after decades of human rights abuses, including in Aceh province, which has been the site of a separatist rebellion since 1976.

The US ended a training programme known as IMET with Indonesia in 1991 after Indonesian soldiers massacred demonstrators in a graveyard in mostly Catholic East Timor.

US relations were scaled back further in 1999, after the Indonesian military orchestrated a scorched earth campaign, killing hundreds of people, following East Timor's vote for independence in a UN-sponsored plebiscite.

The US training programmes, which included courses on operating a civilian chain of command, are exactly those needed by militaries such as Indonesia to improve their record, argue supporters such as Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. Under the IMET programme, Indonesian officers were exposed to Western military practices, including codes of conduct and rules of engagement.

A resumption of these programmes is very much needed by the Indonesian military. John Haseman, a former US military attache in Jakarta, says the "cost of cutting IMET" has been that many senior Indonesian officers have not had exposure to US military practices.

Some US military observers have noted that tsunami relief co-ordination went more smoothly with the Thais because both militaries knew each other under the IMET programme, and conducted military operations together. India, Pakistan, and Malaysia also take part in the programme.

In a speech in late January, Senator Bond called for an end to military sanctions against Indonesia, claiming the country could be a stronger ally in the war on Al- Qaeda-linked terrorists. In a statement, Bond said that sanctions on the sale of spare parts had slowed the delivery of aid to tsunami victims. Secretary of State Rice also supports closer ties.

Opposition In Washington: But Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the architect of the 1999 restrictions, disagrees. Senator Leahy is a vocal critic of the TNI. He argues that Indonesia's military has done little to change its ways. He says Indonesia has failed to bring to account officers involved in atrocities in East Timor, dismissing the convictions of a Jakarta-based ad hoc court for human rights crimes in East Timor.

In the US Senate, Leahy recently accused the Indonesian military of consistently obstructing justice. "Although senior Indonesian military officers have repeatedly vowed to support reform, they have done next to nothing to hold their members accountable for these heinous crimes", he said in a statement.

Leahy said that Indonesian officers were already receiving some US training. Such programmes include counter-terrorism skills. And Indonesia, with proper disclosure, can purchase from the US some military spare parts for "non-lethal" items.

US investigators have accused the Indonesian military of blocking an FBI investigation into the deaths in 2002 of two Americans for 18 months in the far-flung Papua province near a gold mine operated by a US company. The murders have further complicated efforts to restore links.

Although he did not mention the IMET programme, after his visit to Indonesia in mid-January, Wolfowitz said that co-operation between the US and Indonesian military establishments could mean closer ties. He said that the US needed to "help build the kind of defense institution that will ensure in the future that the Indonesian military, like our military, is a loyal function of a democratic government".

A study sponsored by the United States-Indonesia Society (USINDO), a Washington-based non-governmental organization, is also calling for the US to lift restrictions on military ties with Indonesia. The report from USINDO, whose members include US corporations which do business in Indonesia, such as Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold and Exxon-Mobil, is calling for expansion of military ties.

The US still has a 1,000-bed hospital ship, the Mercy, in Aceh's waters as part of the $4.5 billion relief effort there. But Islamic scholars such as Ulil say that among many ordinary Muslims the enhanced post-tsunami image for the US - regardless of the relations between the governments - will not be permanent. "As long as there is aggression, as long as there is a US presence in Iraq, there will be distrust [among ordinary Muslims], it has very deep roots in history".