Australia 'must help SE Asia counter terrorist threat'

Australia 'must help SE Asia counter terrorist threat'

Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia

A Labor government would switch Australia's counter-terrorist
focus from the Middle East, where the U.S. has many allies, to
Southeast Asia, where Islamic militancy is an "extremely serious
threat", the opposition vowed on Sunday.

Labor's newly-appointed defense spokesman Kim Beazley also
said the party would not leave the United States "in the lurch in
Iraq", despite its pledge to recall Australian troops by
Christmas if it won the election now tipped for October or
November.

Beazley told Channel Nine's Sunday program that a Labor
government would fully support America in the event of another
major terrorist attack similar to Sept. ll, 2001, in the United
States.

However, it would tell the U.S. administration: "You've got
plenty of friends in Iraq, but where are your friends in
Southeast Asia?

"Now it is absolutely critical that Australia stands alongside
those Southeast Asian countries and helps them out with what is
now an extremely serious threat," he warned.

He said Southeast Asia was now a field of Islamic militancy in
which very few external countries, including Australia, were
actively engaged.

Labor had promised to help in a nation-building program in
Iraq, by sending customs officers, health workers and
administrative staff to help the new administration secure its
borders and improve its health system.

It would also leave diplomatic security personnel in Iraq and
leave its naval and air forces in the Gulf to protect Iraqi
interests.

But he said its major focus would be on Southeast Asia, citing
as an example maritime security in the main waterways, which he
said were used by terrorists and were now under threat of attack.

"They use trading bases in one part of the archipelago to
supply personnel for others, and they're now getting into
piracy," he said. "At least, the Abu Sayyaf group is, and others
will do so shortly."

He said it was a clear case for a strong allied maritime
effort, but that local countries would not accept the U.S. and
did not have the equipment to deal with the problem themselves.
"We have," he added.

"We have the equipment, we have the experience and we have the
heart."