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Regional anti-terror meet starts

Defense ministers and military chiefs from Asia and key global powers arrived in Singapore yesterday for three days of talks amid tight security designed to protect them from possible terrorist attacks and a new enemy -- SARS.

Fever-detecting thermal cameras scanned everyone entering the lobby of the Shangri-La hotel where the Asian Security Conference is taking place to ensure they were not infected with SARS.

US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon and Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill were scheduled to attend along with counterparts from Japan, India and Southeast Asia.

The conference is expected to focus on the North Korean nuclear standoff, the threat of international terrorism and recent declarations by the United States and Australia that they would pre-emptively attack other countries to stop an imminent terrorist attack.

Layers of police checkpoints were set up in Singapore's shopping district around the hotel where ministers, intelligence chiefs and military leaders from 20 countries were scheduled to meet.

"The Singapore government has been quite remarkable in the way which they have taken additional measures ... to not only ensure the physical security, but also the health and safety of the participants at this meeting," said John Chipman, the conference's organizer and director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The conference, which was first held a year ago in Singapore, is the largest forum for Asia Pacific defense leaders to discuss military and strategic policies, he said.

Wolfowitz is scheduled to speak Saturday about changes in US defense policy in Asia before heading to Seoul and Tokyo for further talks.

One of the main focuses of the conference will be North Korea's decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reactivate mothballed nuclear facilities, Chipman said.

Britain's Hoon and French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie are among those who are expected to forcefully state that a nuclear North Korea would be a threat to international stability, he added. Both represent nuclear powers and are permanent members of the UN Security Council.

North Korea -- labeled by Washington as part of an "axis of evil" developing weapons of mass destruction -- did not accept an invitation to attend the conference. China also will not attend, Chipman said.

The conference is the largest gathering of top defense officials in Asia since Bali bombings in October, which killed 202 people.

The attack was blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah -- a Southeast Asian Islamic organization linked to al-Qaeda. One of the prime suspects in the bombings, Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, told an Indonesian court on Wednesday that he knew al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden "very well."

Despite international efforts to stamp out terrorism, militants are believed to be active in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, Chipman said.

Concern over terrorism has been heightened after the suspected al-Qaeda bombings this month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which killed 25 people, and in Casablanca, Morocco, which killed 31.
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