Australia plans to step up security at its diplomatic missions worldwide and warned yesterday that terrorists could be planning another attack on Australians in Indo-nesia, two days after a bomb killed nine people outside Canberra's embassy in Jakarta.
Prime Minister John Howard said he'd ordered "bombproofing" at missions that don't have it, "because of the obvious success of the bombproofing at the windows of the Australian Embassy, and the evident role that bombproofing played in saving the lives of those employed at the embassy."
PHOTO:AP
All those killed in the bombing were Indonesians who were either guarding the embassy, queuing to get in or passing by.
Howard said the Australian Embassy in Jakarta would not be closed.
"To me that would be to surrender," he said.
He was speaking after the government's National Security Committee was briefed by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who returned yesterday from Jakarta after touring the blast site and meeting top Indonesian officials including President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Earlier yesterday, the government updated its warning for Australians traveling to Indonesia or living there.
"The bomb attack outside the Australian Embassy on 9 September underscores the ongoing terrorist threat to Australians in Indonesia," said the warning, posted on a government Web site.
"The possibility of another attack against Australians cannot be ruled out," the warning said.
It advised Australians to put off all but essential travel to Indonesia, and urged its citizens there who fear for their safety to consider leaving.
"We continue to receive reports that terrorists in the region are planning attacks against a range of targets, including places frequented by foreigners," the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in the warning.
Flag carrier Qantas, expecting an exodus of Australians, began using larger jets for flights out of Indonesia after the bombing.
Opposition Labor Party foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd, who accompanied Downer to Jakarta, said extra security at the embassy -- including bomb-resistant windows and a reinforced fence and gate -- had likely slashed the death toll.
Also yesterday, Labor leader Mark Latham said that if he wins Oct. 9 elections, his government would work with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to clamp down on Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group.
JI claimed it carried out the embassy bombing because Indonesian authorities did not comply with its alleged demand that they release Abu Bakar Bashir, a radical Muslim cleric accused of being the group's leader.
Speaking after a security meeting of his Labor Party, which hopes to oust Howard's conservative government in an October 9 election, Latham said Australia's greatest challenge was "to target and break up" JI terrorist networks in the region.
In particular, Australia should be involved in maritime strategies to prevent JI operatives travelling to and from their bases in the southern Philippines, he said.
"Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia require assistance in this regard and Australia must be involved in these frontline efforts to deal with JI at its core," Latham said.
However, any suggestion of a direct Australian naval role is likely to receive an icy reception in Jakarta, where many government and military officials are still bitter over Canberra's decision to lead international intervention in East Timor in 1999.
Although largely based in Indonesia, JI operatives are known to have received support from Muslim rebels in and around the Philippines island of Mindanao, where a separatist war against the Christian-dominated government in Manila has raged for decades.
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