But their praise of the terrorists, who were buried on Sunday afternoon, was quickly denounced by the country's highest Islamic authority - the Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI) - which declared that the men had been executed for committing murders in a country at peace.

Amrozi, 47, his elder brother Mukhlas, 48 and ringleader Imam Samudra, 38, were killed with shots to the heart by a firing squad in an orange grove near their prison on Nusakambangan island off Central Java in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Attorney-General's office was quoted as saying that the men died instantly, and that they had been executed without blindfolds at their request.

It marked the end of a six-year wait for justice by the families of the 202 victims, mostly Australian tourists, killed in the bombing of two night clubs in the Kuta area of Bali on Oct 12, 2002.

Security has been stepped up across Indonesia amidst threats of attacks in Bali and in Jakarta shopping malls.

National police spokesman Abu Bakar Nataprawira claimed after the execution that security was under control, although the Australian, British and United States embassies have urged their citizens to keep a low profile in the country.

On Sunday, hundreds of hardliners, including members of the Al-Mukmin boarding school founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir in Solo, Central Java, descended on the village of Tenggulun in Lamongan, East Java, to greet the return of the bodies of Amrozi and Mukhlas.

They clashed with police as the bodies arrived by helicopter and were transfered to ambulances before being taken to their family home for the last rites.

Presiding over the last rites was Bashir himself, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the terrorist network blamed for the bombings.

Bashir, who was also jailed after being implicated in the attacks carried out by his disciples, declared the three men mujahid, or holy warriors, while the family of Amrozi and Mukhlas remained firm in describing them as 'martyrs'.

Despite the presence of over 1,500 police personnel, tension was high in the village as hardliners shoved with the police to get near the bodies, which were later buried in a family cemetery.

There were similar scenes in the west Java town of Serang, as Samudra's body was paraded through the streets between the Al-Manar mosque and graveyard, shrouded in a black cloth bearing Quranic inscription.

Mr Ahmad Syafi'i Ma'arif, the former chairman of Muhammadiyah, the country's second-largest Muslim organisation, also rejected claims that the three men were holy warriors and martyrs.

'It is an incorrect interpretation of the word jihad to include acts of terror,' he said.

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