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JP/2/

RI, Australia to open antiterror center

Agencies
Denpasar, Bali

Australia and Indonesia announced on Thursday the planned
establishment of an antiterror center in an effort to fight
groups like the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his country
would give A$38.3 million (US$29.5 million) to the Indonesia
Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation.

"We'll be putting A$38.3 million over five years into that
center," he was quoted by AFP as saying on the sidelines of a
regional counterterrorism conference on the resort island of
Bali.

Downer said Australia was seeking donations from other
countries for the center that would provide information and
training for cash-strapped governments fighting terror groups.

An Indonesian figure would head the staff of the center that
will include 20 Australians, most of them federal police
officers, and will be based in Jakarta, he said.

"Its task will not only be to help ourselves (Australia and
Indonesia) with training, but also others in the region who want
to take advantage of this resource," he said as quoted by AP.

The center is expected to be operational by the end of 2004,
Downer said, while the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
spokesman Marty Natalegawa talked of an earlier start date.

"We are talking more of weeks, rather than months, I think. At
least the embryo of the thing," he told AFP.

Downer said the center would not only be helping with the
investigation of Jamaah Islamiyah, but also its links with al-
Qaeda and other terrorist organizations like the Abu Sayyaf group
in the Philippines.

The center is expected to offer training in forensics, bomb
disposal and other antiterror techniques, and to provide an
information clearinghouse.