Australia to increase defense spending

Australia to increase defense spending

Associated Press, Canberra

Australia will likely increase defense and security spending in
the wake of the Bali bombing and might need to send troops to
Southeast Asia in the war against terrorism, the government said
on Wednesday.

"When something like the 12th of October happens to a country
like Australia you have to look right across the gamut and I felt
in my bones that we would have to commit more resources to
defense and security," Prime Minister John Howard told reporters.

The bombing on the Indonesia island of Bali earlier this month
killed more than 180 people and injured 300. Some 90 Australians
are missing or have been confirmed dead in the attack.

Many in Australia are comparing national anguish over the
bombing to the pain Americans felt after the Sept. 11 attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. U.S President George W.
Bush also has made the comparison.

After the Bali bombing, Defense Minister Robert Hill called
for a review of Australia's security policies.

On Wednesday he said there would be a shift in defense and
security strategy to include closer ties with Indonesia.

"For example, expand our intelligence, sharing of
intelligence, supporting them in their efforts, to ensure that
terrorism is rooted out within Indonesia," he told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Speaking earlier on the broadcasting corporation's national
television network, Hill also said Australian troops could be
sent to Indonesia and other countries in the region.

"I don't think it's out of the question that some time in the
future our forces may well be working with forces of other
regional states to tackle this joint enemy," Hill said.

Australia already has more than 100 police, intelligence and
defense personnel in Bali working on an international
investigation with Indonesia, the United States, Britain and
several other countries.

Also Wednesday, Attorney-General Daryl Williams rushed a bill
to Parliament to allow the government to immediately list
organizations as terrorist groups under Australian law, instead
of deliberating for months.

Howard on Wednesday dismissed a U.S. media report that claims
an Australian spy agency eavesdropped on members of Jamaah
Islamiyah talking about hitting Australian targets in Asia only
weeks before the Bali bombing.

According to the report by David Kaplan in this week's edition
of U.S. News and World Report magazine, two separate U.S.
intelligence sources told him the intercepted conversations were
made in the weeks leading up to the Bali attack.

Howard said Australian intelligence agencies had searched
their records and found no evidence of any specific threats
related to Bali.

An al-Qaeda operative now in U.S. custody has told the FBI
about plans to attack popular bars and nightclubs in Southeast
Asia, according to classified documents, the Cable News Network
reported on Tuesday.

Mohammed Mansour Jabarah told FBI interrogators that another
al-Qaeda operative, Riduan Isamuddin, was planning to "conduct
small bombings in bars, cafes or nightclubs frequented by
westerners in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and
Indonesia," CNN reported.