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Japan assures public over prediction of terror attack

Japan yesterday said that it already has tight security in place after a French official warned that al-Qaeda was preparing to attack a big Asian financial center such as Tokyo.

Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's top terrorist investigator, told yesterday's Financial Times that Japan was at particular risk and that some Asian countries were less prepared than the West for al-Qaeda attacks.

"It isn't clear how concrete this report is," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda.

"The Japanese government has already been cooperating internationally" to prevent attacks, Hosoda told reporters. "We would like to do our best so that no such thing happens."

Al-Qaeda has repeatedly threatened Japan, a close US ally that stations 600 troops in Iraq and hosts the largest US military base in Asia.

Japan has stepped up security after the July 7 bombings on London transport, and this month it set up a conference of the police force and other organizations that meets to coordinate measures against attacks.

"Since the bombings in London, we have requested railway companies to increase security guards' patrols in stations, the number of monitoring cameras and to make more announcements calling for vigilance among passengers," said Noriaki Ino, a transport ministry official who is part of the conference.

"The number of policemen patrolling inside subway stations has increased" since the London attacks, he said. "In the conference we will examine the possibility of taking further measures."

Experts say al-Qaeda would have a tougher time infiltrating and plotting attacks in largely homogenous Japan than they would in a multicultural city such as London.

Tokyo, which has the world's biggest public transport network, has already imposed tight security since 1995 when a doomsday cult spread Nazi-invented sarin gas on rush-hour subway trains, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.
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