Terror alerts spread around the world yesterday with Australia and New Zealand warning their nationals to be on their guard in Southeast Asia, a region still haunted by last year's Bali bombings.
As Saudi, FBI and CIA agents hunted for the masterminds of this week's suicide bomb attacks in Riyadh, the US Department of State said on Thursday it feared an imminent attack by Islamic militants in another Saudi city, Jeddah.
Lebanon said it had smashed a plot to attack the US embassy in Beirut, while Britain banned flights to Kenya, where past terror attacks have killed hundreds.
In Pakistan, a US ally in the war on terror, nearly two dozen small bombs exploded at Western-branded gas stations.
Governments around the world believe al-Qaeda, the network of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, and its allies are planning more assaults on Western targets.
"It could be a variety of potential targets. It could be a variety of types of attacks," a US official said on condition of anonymity.
The intelligence was of "roughly" similar intensity to that before Monday's bombing attacks on expatriate compounds in Riyadh that killed at least 34 people, including seven Americans.
The Australian foreign office said Australians should be extremely cautious in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor and Brunei.
"We continue to receive reports that terrorist elements in the region are planning attacks," it said.
Jemaah Islamiah, a radical Muslim group linked to al-Qaeda, is accused of the bombings in Bali nightclubs last October that killed more than 200 people, many of them young Westerners.
US sources said yesterday a decision to renew a travel warning to Americans visiting Malaysia was not driven by any fresh information of a terrorist threat in the mostly Muslim country.
The Riyadh bombings were the first big attack on US interests since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, portrayed by Washington as an integral part of its war on terror.
The US stuck to its view that this anti-terror war had shattered al-Qaeda's leadership, but Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said: "The potential is still very, very real."
Reinforcing that threat, the State Department said it feared a repeat of Monday's bombings in Saudi Arabia.
In unusual criticism, Washington said the kingdom needed to do more to fight terrorism. Attorney-General John Ashcroft said the bombings showed Saudi Arabia had a "terrorism problem."
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, admitted security lapses but rejected charges militancy was a home-grown phenomenon.
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
Taiwanese shares yesterday posted a record daily gain of more than 1,700 points to close above 40,000 points for the first time, led by large-cap semiconductor stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) amid optimism about the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The TAIEX ended up 1,778.51 points, or 4.57 percent, at 40,705.14 after moving between 39,228.39 and 40,755.52, while the New Taiwan dollar closed up NT$0.038 at NT$31.610 per US dollar, ending three consecutive sessions of declines. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$1.007 trillion (US$31.9 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$66.98 billion
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
NON-INTERFERENCE: The US called Taiwan a trusted and capable partner, while an African Union leader urged nations to reflect on respect for sovereign choices Taiwan is a “trusted and capable” partner of the US and Taipei’s global relationships, including with Eswatini, provide significant benefits, the US Department of State said of President William Lai’s (賴清德) trip to the southern African kingdom. Lai arrived in the former Swaziland on Saturday on a surprise visit after a planned trip last month was canceled when Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar denied overflight permission for his aircraft due to Chinese pressure. “Taiwan is a trusted and capable partner of the United States and many others, and its relationships around the world provide significant benefits to the citizens of those countries,
RSS