Cambodia needs help urgently if it is to avoid becoming a "breeding ground for terrorism," the chairman of the Security Council committee on al-Qaeda said on Friday.
Cambodia has no anti-terrorism legislation in place and lacks the capacity to enforce such laws, the chairman, Chile's UN ambassador, Heraldo Munoz, said at a press conference following committee visits to the Philippines, Thailand, Australia and Cambodia.
"There are some countries that are far behind ... in their capabilities to confront the threat of terrorism and, therefore, they could become platforms for the operation of Jemaah Islamiya and other groups associated with al-Qaeda," he said.
While Australia is "at the forefront" in the anti-terror fight and cooperates effectively with nearby Indonesia and with small Pacific island nations that need support, Cambodia's case causes concern, Munoz said.
Munoz warned that Hambali, the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, had spent some time in Cambodia and "he was not vacationing there, clearly." Discrimination against Muslims in southern Cambodia and reports of violence in that area also are worrisome, he added.
Jemaah Islamiyah is Southeast Asia's biggest terror group. It has been blamed for a string of attacks in the region, including bombings on Indonesia's Bali island and at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta.
Committee members met with senior officials in each of the four countries visited, including with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The committee is responsible for reviewing implementation of UN sanctions imposed on al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others.
The committee will go to the Middle East in about a month, Munoz said, but he wouldn't say which countries it would visit.
The ambassador said there are now 433 individuals or groups on the committee's list of those associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban, with the addition earlier in the week of Tawhid and Jihad, the terror group headed by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The group is believed to be behind several high profile attacks in Iraq, including the beheading of foreign hostages and the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad last year.
The Philippines recognizes that it has problems with Jemaah Islamiyah and other terrorist groups on some of its southern islands while Thailand faces problems in three heavily Muslim provinces but sees no clear link to al-Qaeda there, he said.
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