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."