RI looks to boost terror fight: Downer

RI looks to boost terror fight: Downer

Paul Holmes, Reuters/Canberra

Indonesia is looking at ways to strengthen coordination among its security services in the fight against militants and Australia will do whatever it can to help, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday.

"Coordinating their efforts could make a significant difference to their efforts to catch people, track them down and identify who is responsible for the different kinds of terrorist activities and where they are coming from," Downer said.

He spoke to Reuters before leaving for Indonesia for a memorial service on Wednesday on the third anniversary of the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Australia wants Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, to ban the militant network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) and exclude its jailed spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir from a remission program open to most prisoners.

Ba'asyir was jailed for 30 months for his role in the Bali bombings in March but his sentence was cut by 135 days on Indonesia's Independence Day. It could be cut further at the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan in November.

Downer made clear he did not expect substantive progress on the Ba'asyir issue or a JI ban during his trip and said effective counter-terrorism operations were ultimately more important.

"It would certainly play well to the international community, it would certainly demonstrate their commitment to fighting terrorism," Downer said.

"But in practice, I think, the task is much more for them to make sure their counter-terrorism agencies are really well coordinated and that they are able to get (intelligence) input from their foreign partners," Downer said.

He declined to say whether an announcement on some sort of new umbrella security agency would be made during his two-day visit, which his office said would include talks in Jakarta on Wednesday with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

JI has been accused of involvement in several bombings in Indonesia, including an attack on the Australian embassy in 2004 that killed 10 Indonesians and this month's suicide bombings on Bali when four Australians were among the 23 dead.

Downer said better information sharing among the army, police, customs and intelligence services could make a real difference in the Indonesian archipelago, where travel by boat to and from neighboring countries often went unrecorded and allowed militants to slip in and out of havens in the Philippines.

"It's not just a question of knowing who's moving in and out. It's even having a system where people are reporting that they are moving in and out. It's not as sophisticated as it is at Sydney airport," Downer said.

Police in several countries have linked JI to al-Qaeda but the Indonesian authorities have argued they cannot ban it since it is not an established, structured group.

Downer expressed some understanding for that position.

"I've made the point that (a ban) would be a good step forward but you'd always be having to prove that people belong to an organization which would be hard to prove because they are not paying a subscription or holding a membership card," he said.