U.S. boosting Asian counterterrorism cooperation: Rice

U.S. boosting Asian counterterrorism cooperation: Rice

Associated Press, Phuket, Thailand

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday
the United States is stepping up cooperation to fight terrorism
in Southeast Asia, warning that terror attacks remain a major
threat across the region.

"The threat of extremism is a threat that is worldwide and has
had its manifestation in Southeast Asia," she said, citing
nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002 that killed 202
people. "This is a region that does have a problem."

Southeast Asia terror leader Riduan Isamuddin, also known as
Hambali, was arrested in Thailand in 2003 after an investigation
assisted by Washington. He is now in U.S. custody.

Hambali is believed to be the main link between al-Qaeda and
Jamaah Islamiyah, the regional terror group blamed for the Bali
bombings, and a 2003 attack at the J.W. Marriott hotel in
Jakarta, Indonesia that killed 12 people.

"With our regional partners, we're intensifying
counterterrorism cooperation, we're intensifying intelligence
cooperation, we're intensifying law enforcement cooperation,"
Rice said, without elaborating.

She added: "We've had training and tactical assistance on some
of these matters with Thailand and we intend to continue that."

But her decision to skip a key regional security meeting has
sent "an uneasy signal" that Washington may be sidelining
Southeast Asia, Malaysia's foreign minister said on Monday.

Rice will be the first secretary of state to miss the annual
security meeting - hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, or ASEAN - since Alexander Haig skipped it in 1982.

"I hope it is not an indication that the U.S. is giving less
importance or showing less interest in ASEAN while focusing on
the Middle East," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told
reporters. "I think ASEAN is an equally important regional area."

Rice told reporters during a one-day visit to Thailand Monday
that, "I think this is a vital organization in which we want to
engage more. I do have other essential travel in roughly the same
timeframe."

The further strengthening of the United States' relationship
with Thailand in providing humanitarian assistance after the Dec.
26 tsunami has also helped bolster cooperation in dealing with
terrorists, she said.

Rice arrived on the resort island of Phuket on late Sunday
after talks in Beijing with Chinese leaders in a four-nation tour
through Asia focused primarily on how to get North Korea to give
up nuclear weapons development.

In a major breakthrough, Pyongyang said on Saturday it would
abandon a yearlong boycott and resume disarmament talks this
month.

Rice spoke to reporters after meeting with Thailand's Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Foreign Minister Kantathi
Suphamongkhon at the start of a one-day visit to review the
country's efforts to rebuild coastal areas battered by the
tsunami.

Photo on Page 3, story on Page 11