Indonesia, Singapore cooperate to fight international terrorism
Indonesia, Singapore cooperate to fight international terrorism
Agence France-Presse, Jakarta
Singapore will work closely with neighboring Indonesia to combat
international terrorism, visiting Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan
said here Thursday.
Tan, who is also coordinating minister for security and
defense, was speaking after a meeting with Indonesia's senior
security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"Terrorism is a menace and terrorism today is international,"
Tan told reporters.
"It is not possible for any one country to combat this menace
and we have to cooperate together."
Earlier Thursday the Singapore government announced two more
Singaporeans had been arrested for being part of the al-Qaeda
-linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI). This brings to 35 the number
detained in the city state for alleged JI links.
Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng told AFP in Singapore that
the crackdown on JI had effectively routed the group there.
"With the arrests that we have made in Singapore we believe we
have been able to cripple severely the capability and the ability
of extremist organizations to mount terrorist attacks. But it
does not mean that this menace has been eradicated," Tan said.
"The two detainees are a manifestation of how dangerous the
threat of the Jamaah Islamiyah and terrorism still is in
Singapore. We should be under no illusion that JI has been
eliminated."
He said Singapore had to be continuously on guard for "new
leaders, younger leaders" that are being groomed by JI.
The minister also said any terror attack in Indonesia was bad
for Singapore.
"It presents the wrong image of the region to the whole world.
That is why we cooperate closely together ... in order to remove
this menace which threatens all our societies and economies."
Indonesia has arrested scores of JI suspects since the October
2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people but remains on top
alert for attacks, especially over Christmas.
Susilo praised excellent intelligence and police cooperation
between Indonesia and Singapore and said Indonesia would like to
see its regional neighbors holding joint military and police
training exercises in the archipelago.
Tan is due to meet President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Friday.