Howard to attend Bali blast service despite new fears
Howard to attend Bali blast service despite new fears
Mary Longmore, Associated Press, Sydney, Australia
Australia's prime minister vowed on Sunday to attend a service for the victims of last year's bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, despite an attack on a Jakarta hotel this week and warnings of more terrorist violence in the region.
"It would send a very bad signal if the Australian prime minister didn't go," John Howard told Channel 9 TV. "It would take a very big change (in security) ... to stop me going" to the one-year anniversary service for the 202 people, including 88 Australians, killed in the Oct. 12 blasts.
Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, an Indonesian, was sentenced to death on Thursday for his role in the Bali nightclub bombings. Two days before he was sentenced, an apparent suicide bomber killed 11 people and injured 146 outside Jakarta's Marriott hotel.
The United States and Australia have since warned that extremists may be planning more attacks against Western interests in Indonesia.
Howard said on Sunday that Australia's national airline Qantas is a potential target of terrorists firing heat-seeking missiles from the ground.
Howard said concerns in the United States and Britain about possible terrorist attacks on commercial airlines prompted Australian authorities to launch intelligence-sharing talks with London, focusing on Qantas flights in and out of London's Heathrow airport.
"That's one of the things we're constantly in touch with the British about," Howard said. He didn't disclose further details about the concerns.
No one at the airline was immediately available for comment. Qantas flies to Heathrow about 20 times a week.
The United States issued fresh predictions of more terrorist attacks in the Asia-Pacific region following the Marriott blast. Howard has not ruled out the possibility of attacks on Australian soil.
Howard said all Western embassies and gathering points in Indonesia were potential targets.
He said the latest intelligence showed the Marriott blast was "almost certainly" carried out by the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group, and possibly linked to al-Qaeda. Jamaah Islamiyah copied al-Qaeda tactics and was a "menace" to Australia, Howard said.
Howard said the Marriott bombing had hit the local Indonesian population hardest -- only one victim was foreign.
"One of the perverse things is that these things are meant to be done to 'avenge our Muslim brothers,' yet what they do is kill our Muslim brothers," Howard told Channel 9. "It's a reminder that terrorism is as much an enemy of Islam as it is of other religions."
Howard dismissed fears that Amrozi -- who greeted his execution sentence with apparent jubilation -- would become a martyr if killed by authorities. He again stressed he would not seek to intervene to keep the sentence from being carried out despite Australia having no death penalty.
"People will think, well that's a bit odd, this man killed 88 Australians and has been sentenced to death and the Australian government is asking that he not be executed," Howard said, adding that Amrozi would probably be regarded as a martyr by some whether he was killed or jailed for life.
Responding to a report by the Australian Institute of Engineers that Australia was 18 months behind the United States in its counterterrorism security measures, Howard said the risk to Australia "while real" was nowhere near as great as that to the United States.
He said the report failed to consider the government's new antiterrorism unit, set up to coordinate intelligence and advice.