Terrorists seeking new targets: S'pore

Terrorists seeking new targets: S'pore

SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian terrorist groups are seeking new targets and remain a serious threat to the region, Singapore's Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said on Friday.

"Indeed, notwithstanding our successes, we have clearly seen a certain resilience in the terror networks in the region to regenerate itself with new recruits," Wong said at the launching ceremony of a new frigate for the Singapore navy.

"While we may have seen fewer car bombs of late, we have seen more suicide bombers with body-borne bombs," he said.

Southeast Asia has been described by the United States as the second front in its global "war on terror". Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, has been blamed for several attacks in the region, especially in Indonesia.

"The terror groups are constantly seeking to exploit the loopholes and gaps in our collective security response," Wong said.

"The terror groups also continue to adapt and adopt new methods and explore new target arenas for action as the authorities grow wise to their old methods and tighten up security in the arenas where they had operated before." --AFP