Malaysia set to launch antiterror center

Malaysia set to launch antiterror center

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

A Southeast Asian antiterrorism center that was proposed by the United States will begin operating in Malaysia before the end of the year, a diplomat heading the project said on Monday.

Malaysia has picked a senior diplomat to head a regional antiterrorism center which it hopes to launch by the end of the year in partnership with the United States, reports said on Monday.

Zainal Abidin Zain, the foreign ministry undersecretary for Southeast Asia and Pacific, has been appointed director-general of the center, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying by The Star.

"We will launch our programs very soon ... definitely before 2003 is over," Zainal Abidin told Associated Press.

Malaysia said last year it would host the center after U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about the idea during a meeting with Southeast Asian leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Mexico.

But Kuala Lumpur's staunch opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq subsequently raised questions about whether the center should be moved elsewhere. However, officials in this predominantly Muslim country stressed they remained committed to the fight against terrorism.

Syed Hamid said on Sunday that the center would be run like an institute, holding training programs, workshops and seminars to help the region implement antiterrorism measures.

Zainal Abidin said officials were in the final stages of identifying a headquarters in Kuala Lumpur for the center and recruiting support staff, who would initially comprise Malaysians only.

He said Malaysia would foot the bill of setting up the facility, but other governments, including those outside Southeast Asia, might be invited to help fund and participate in future programs.

Deputy Defense Minister Shafie Apdal has said the United States may offer some financial assistance to set up the center and "if it does, we will accept it".

Experts from around the world will serve as instructors at the center, which will be open to all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) when it is launched.

Southeast Asian leaders have stepped up cooperation against terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, last year's Oct. 12 nightclub bombings on Indonesia's Bali island and a series of bomb attacks in the Philippines.

Malaysia and Singapore have detained without trial scores of suspected militants from Jamaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked extremist group suspected in the Bali bombings and accused of plotting attacks on U.S. embassies and other diplomatic missions in Southeast Asia. Suspected members have also been arrested in the Philippines.

Malaysia was one of Asia's leading critics of the Iraq war, warning it would kill innocent Iraqis, fuel international terrorism and worsen the global economy.