Asia steps up security ahead of Christmas

Asia steps up security ahead of Christmas

Clarence Fernandez, Reuters, Singapore

As Christmas approaches, Asian nations are tightening security and warning citizens against the risk of violence, drafting in helicopters in Pakistan, a judo champion in Japan and more police everywhere.

From a blizzard of warnings by Australia, 88 of whose citizens died in bomb blasts in Bali, to plans by Indonesian police to guard churches, targeted in a string of Christmas Eve bombings in 2000, governments are urging people to be on guard.

Indonesia said it was preparing for the worst and would pay special attention to churches and prayer sites. Malaysia has tightened patrols around popular tourist entertainment spots in its capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Christmas and New Year celebrations, as well as upcoming elections, were a vulnerable time, Indonesia's Coordinating Minister of Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters.

"Understanding the behavior and the mindset of terrorists, we had better prepare for the worst," he said.

Deputy national police spokesman Soenarko said police have prepared a security plan to guard churches and prayer sites.

In Japan, Olympic judo champion Kosei Inouye features in a foreign ministry campaign aimed at people traveling overseas around New Year. The sportsman's name sounds similar to the Japanese phrase for the request "Do this", and he is pictured in classic judo pose beside a list of precautions.

"We have issued ad hoc advisories telling people to avoid facilities which may become targets of terrorism, such as those belonging to the U.S. or British governments," a foreign ministry official said.

Many Japanese fear they could become the targets of terrorist attacks at home following reported threats by al-Qaeda to "strike at the heart of Tokyo" if Japan sends troops to Iraq. The cabinet approved a plan on Tuesday to send troops there.

In Manila, where a series of bombings killed 22 people a day before New Year's Eve in 2000, soldiers and police have been deployed in strategic areas to deter militants and criminals, particularly kidnap-for-ransom gangs.

Security in the Roman Catholic country is usually stepped up around Christmas when thousands of shoppers throng malls.

"We need complete vigilance at all levels and in all places," said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The United State embassy in Indonesia has warned citizens of increased danger during Christmas and the New Year, saying in a statement the potential for additional bombings at places where Americans and Westerners are known to live or gather is particularly high at this time.

A total of 202 people, most of them Western tourists, died in the Bali bombings in October 2002. A dozen people died in August when a car bomb exploded in front of Jakarta's Marriott Hotel.

The attacks have been blamed on Jamaah Islamiyah, a militant Islamic network in Southeast Asia linked to al-Qaeda.

Australia, named as a potential target by al-Qaeda, has issued a list of 12 nations to be avoided if possible, including Saudi Arabia, and has advised against all travel to six countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, said the country was unlikely to be targeted at Christmas but there was a chance of attacks in countries such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.

"It is just a way to underline to Christians that Muslim extremists are out there and can cause them problems still," Williams said of the chance of a terror attack around Christmas.

South Korea has tightened security for foreign missions and its offices overseas after two of its workers were killed in Iraq last month, an official of the National Police Agency said, although there have been no bomb threats.

In Malaysia, where paramilitary troops throw up night-time roadblocks in popular precincts of the capital such as Bangsar, police said they would stay vigilant.

In Pakistan, a police spokesman in the capital Islamabad said security would be beefed up around churches and Western diplomatic missions at Christmas.

Police would also deploy plainclothes men and helicopters, police official Syed Kamal Shah said in the province of Sindh, whose capital Karachi has seen a spate of attacks on Western and Christian targets in the past two years.