Stand by for more terrorism scares, US warns
By Marian Wilkinson, Herald Correspondent in Washington
May 1, 2004
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The most senior counter-terrorism official in the US says Australia
should expect to uncover more terrorist plots and more terrorists
trying to enter the country.
The State Department's Cofer Black said Australia's greater vigilance
in recent years had already unearthed more threats.
"As you put the resources into defending yourself, and projecting into
the region to help others, I think you're likely to find more and
more," Mr Black said. "It's a big country and it is not immune from
terrorists travelling through or travelling to [Australia]."
Mr Black said ASIO had re-examined Australia as a possible target
after the 2000 Olympics.
The director-general of ASIO, Dennis Richardson, "might tell you that
the Australians had a different view of terrorism before the Sydney
Olympics and afterwards when your very capable security agencies began
looking closer and closer.
"There was a lot more there than I think Australia as a country would
have expected."
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Mr Black, the State Department's co-ordinator for counter-terrorism,
was speaking after the launch of the department's annual report on
global terrorism.
His warning follows the arrests in Sydney of two men accused of
training for terrorism or planning attacks. Faheem Lodhi, 34, has been
accused of plotting to target Australia's energy supply, while Izhar
ul-Haque, 21, has been charged with training with a banned
organisation, Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
The State Department report describes the group as the armed wing of a
Pakistani religious organisation that in the past concentrated on
fighting India over Kashmir. India claimed LeT operatives were
involved in the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001.
The new report also identified South-East Asia as "an attractive
theatre of operations" for al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, the group
responsible for the Bali bombing. The arrest of JI's operational
chief, Hambali, in 2003, showed that the group had also planned
attacks in the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
The report praises Australia's counter-terrorism programs, including
its training of Philippines police and financial support for
Indonesia. Malaysia is also singled out for helping other countries by
opening a new centre for counter-terrorism last August.
Mr Black rejected criticism that the war in Iraq had increased support
for al-Qaeda and undermined the war on terrorism.
He said "professionals" in counter-terrorism did not believe this.
However, his former colleague in the Bush Administration, former
counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, has made this charge
repeatedly since he left the White House.
The first three terrorist incidents cited in Mr Black's report all
happened in Iraq last year, including the bombing of the UN
headquarters in Baghdad, the bombing of the Baghdad offices of the
International Red Cross and the bombing of the Catholic Relief
Services offices in Nasiriyah.
The report says that Iraq during 2003 "became a central front in the
global war on terrorism and the locus of . . . many deadly attacks
against civilians".
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