CAMP ABUBAKAR, Philippines, Feb 28 (AFP) - A Filipino Moslem rebel leader has backed separatist fighters in Indonesia's Aceh province and urged Jakarta to offer them the same chance of independence extended to East Timor.

"Of course we support any independent movement because we believe it is better to let people be free to avoid these confrontations," Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief Hashim Salamat told AFP in his southern Philippines guerrilla base here late Saturday.

Salamat's group has waged a 20-year campaign to set up a separate Islamic state in the southern third of largely Roman Catholic Philippines.

"If everybody feels that they are free, they can exercise their belief, practice their culture, I think this is the best way to avoid confrontation," he said.

The rebel leader said the MILF leadership had become friends with "some of the leaders" of the Aceh Merdeka when the two groups were studying in Middle East universities.

"Of course we have connections long before but we have no actual cooperation with them," he said.

The Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh), which has been active since the mid-1970s, aims to set up an Islamic state in the western Indonesian province of Aceh.

The MILF launched its own campaign in Mindanao island in 1978.

Salamat, who studied philosophy at the Al Ajhar University in Cairo, said there were no exchanges of material support with the Aceh separatists "until now," but added: "We understand their cause, they understand ours."

Mindanao is close to several Indonesian islands. Jakarta had earlier helped Manila conduct peace talks with another Mindanao separatist group, the Moro National Liberation Front, which accepted limited self-rule in a 1996 peace treaty with the government.

"Maybe politically, we can help each other. But to support them in their armed struggle it will be difficult because I think they are fighting people who claim to be Moslems also," Salamat said.

"What we can do for our brothers in Aceh and also our brothers in Indonesia is to convince them that the best way to solve their problems like ours also is to resort to peaceful and political means."

Salamat likened Indonesia, wracked by political and economic turmoil that followed the Asian economic crisis and the downfall of long-time ruler Suharto, to a "balloon which is full of air. It's now bursting."

"The people of Indonesia, both Moslems and Christians, were frustrated for such a long time," he said.

Salamat welcomed Indonesia's offer to allow the former Portuguese territory of East Timor, annexed by Jakarta in 1976, to seek independence.

"Of course, because that will be an example" which the Philippines would be well advised to emulate, he added.