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.