Navy Chief of Staff, Bernard Kent Sondakh, would also meet soon with his counterparts from Malaysia and Singapore to seek ways to increase joint patrols in the Strait, officials said on Friday.

The Malacca Strait is a 500-mile channel through which about 50,000 commercial vessels pass each year, including ships ferrying 80 percent of Japan's oil needs.

"In the future, every thief or terrorist at sea has to be shot dead and this should be publicized by the mass media to teach a lesson," Sondakh said in a statement.

The United States and Singapore have voiced alarm at the risk of pirates linked to terror groups attacking tankers or other vessels in the Strait, and called for tougher security measures.

But Muslim-majority nations Indonesia and Malaysia, on either side of the waterway, have rejected suggestions foreign forces might be used.

Sondakh said his tough order applied especially to the Strait of Malacca, where piracy is a constant menace to vessels.

He complained pirates and hijackers caught at sea by the Indonesian navy were serving only light jail terms and then returning to their ways.

"Those who use weapons have to be shot dead. Don't take them alive, unless they surrender and ask for mercy," he said.

"From now on we will show to the world that the Indonesian Navy alone is capable of safeguarding the Malacca Strait, and don't try and accuse us of violating human rights again."

Navy deputy spokesman Colonel Sumantri said no schedule was available for Sondakh's meeting with his Malaysian or Singaporean counterparts.

"We have been doing coordinated patrols for some time with Malaysia and Singapore there. What we are going to discuss later is how to increase those patrols," Sumantri said.

He had no further details.

The United States is expected to start talks soon with Asian nations on a Regional Maritime Security Initiative, an as yet ill-defined plan whose focus will be to boost cooperation.

Singapore has repeatedly warned of the potential link between pirates and militant networks such as Jemaah Islamiah, blamed for the deadly 2002 bomb blasts on the island of Bali and linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.