Australia to join regional antiterror task force

Australia to join regional antiterror task force

Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia

Australia has agreed to join a southeast Asian police task force set up to battle terrorism in the region, the head of the federal police said on Thursday.

Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said Australia was invited to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) task force by the head of Indonesia's national police, Gen. Da'i Bachtiar in December.

Indonesian police head the task force.

The invitation came as Australian and Indonesian police worked to track down those behind the October bombing on the resort island of Bali which killed about 200 people, 89 of them Australian.

Keelty announced the decision to join the task force ahead of a meeting with Bachtiar Thursday in Canberra.

Indonesian police have yet to decide how many Australian police will be involved with the task force. Final arrangements for the force are expected to be ratified at a meeting of ASEAN police chiefs in May.

Keelty said one of the force's jobs would be to track down more of the Islamic militants beyond the Bali bombing.

"There are still suspects outstanding from the Bali bombings and there's been other bombings in the Philippines this week," Keelty said.

"There are connections between some of those groups in the region and obviously one of the things that General Bachtiar and I will be talking about is trying first and foremost to deal with the people responsible for the Bali bombings and then look at the broader issue of terrorism in our region."

Authorities have blamed the Bali bombing on Jamaah Islamiyah, a radical Islamic group believed linked to Osama bin-Laden's al- Qaeda network.