Nervous Southeast Asia on high alert

Nervous Southeast Asia on high alert

Dan Eaton, Reuters, Bangkok

Southeast Asian countries are beefing up security at palm-fringed resorts and popular city nightspots after the Bali bomb blasts that sent shockwaves through the region, officials said on Wednesday.

The weekend blasts outside a nightclub on the Indonesian island killed more than 180 people, raising fears the al-Qaeda militant Islamic network, evicted from Afghanistan by the U.S.- led war there, is regrouping in the region.

Much of the new security is low-key to avoid frightening tourists, but in some countries heavily armed police units have been added to patrol embassies and airports.

"After the Bali incident, we are keeping a close eye on areas popular with Western visitors," Thailand's Maj. Gen. Thirasak Ngaunbanchong of the Bangkok metropolitan police told reporters.

"Terrorists could disguise themselves as tourists," he said.

Thailand, which got a record 10 million visitors last year, has increased police patrols on its popular southern islands of Phuket and Samui, among the most popular destinations for Western holidaymakers in the region after Bali.

And new teams of police and plainclothes officers have been added to regular patrols of foreign embassies in Bangkok, the backpacker haven of Khaosan Road and the notorious Patpong Road, bursting at the seams with go-go bars and nightclubs.

"All leave for my officers has been canceled for the next two weeks. We're ready for aftershocks from the Bali incident," Tourist Police Commander Sanit Miphan told Reuters.

Thailand's nervousness is mirrored throughout the region. Security at many embassies, businesses and schools has been tight since last month's anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States blamed on al-Qaeda.

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for domestic security, said there was no specific threat to the island state, but that already high security would be maintained.

In the Philippines, the army and police have announced a heightened security alert since the Bali blasts.

National police chief Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane said besides embassies and airports, other potential targets being closely watched were shopping malls, hotels, bus terminals, harbors, power plants and tourist resorts across the country.

The number of police guarding the British Embassy in Manila has been doubled this week and black-uniformed police special forces units have been deployed at Manila's international airport, while a dozen bomb-sniffing dogs prowl the building.

A Malaysian security official told Reuters that Indonesia and the Philippines were the major risk countries for further attacks in the region and had been classified "Priority One".

"In Indonesia the local cells have been activated. Here and in Singapore the local cells have been broken," he said.

In Malaysia and Singapore, where dozens of Islamic militants were rounded up in recent months, authorities had disrupted the activities of extremists, he said.

But when security concerns rise, hoaxers appear, especially if there's a well known American name they can pick on.

On Tuesday, some 1,000 staff in the near-30 storey ExxonMobil office block in downtown Kuala Lumpur stood in the rain for two hours after a bomb scare. Down the road, Malaysian police and U.S. embassy officials combed a car park after another threat.

Bomb scares have added to the nervousness of tourists still in Bali.

A hotel in Kuta Beach received a bomb threat on Tuesday night and police spent three hours searching before determining it was a hoax, a staff member told Reuters.

Security has also been visibly stepped-up at various sites in Jakarta, including some hotels, with uniformed personnel manning metal detectors and checking building passes and identification.