Australian intelligence eavesdropped on radical Muslim extremists
discussing attacks on Australian citizens in the weeks before the Bali
terrorist bombing, according to a report published in the United
States.
The claim, in this week's edition of US News and World Report,
increases suspicions about the possible role played by the extremist group
Jemaah Islamiyah in the Bali attack.
The report quotes unnamed US intelligence sources referring to
"conversations intercepted by Australian intelligence of JI operatives
plotting to attack Australians in the region".
The report's author, US journalist David Kaplan, said two intelligence
sources had told him of the intercepts and one had said the conversations
were intercepted in the weeks before the attacks.
The threat to Australians covered South-East Asia. It is unclear
whether the conversations were translated or analysed before the Bali
bombings on October 12.
A spokesman for the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, said the
Government's policy was not to comment on intelligence matters. But he
said preliminary checks of intelligence gathered by Australia and other
countries had not identified any specific information that would have
indicated an impending attack on Bali.
In other developments:
A poll by SBS found 53 per cent of respondents opposed military
involvement in Iraq following the bombings. Young Australians were most
likely to support Australian troops going to Iraq.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, told the Bulletin it was
"inevitable" defence spending would have to rise after Bali, and would
have to be properly funded.
The Australian Federal Police commissioner, Mick Keelty, said
yesterday none of the people held by the Indonesian authorities to date
could be regarded as clear suspects at this stage.
Indonesia moved closer to blaming JI for the bombings, with its police
chief, General Da'i Bachtiar, saying he was now "developing analysis in
that direction". Police were "trying to find the links" between JI, its
deputy leader, Hambali, and the attacks.
The British Government yesterday asked the cross-party intelligence
and security committee to examine all Western intelligence traffic before
the bombings in an attempt to prove it could not have protected Britons
from death and injury.
But the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, insisted there was no
information that could have prevented the atrocity and "correct
judgements" had been made. There was no "specific" intelligence about an
attack on Bali.
The emergence of the JI threats against Australians adds to existing
questions about what Australia's intelligence organisations knew before
the attacks.
The new claims follow a string of intelligence leaks in the US
indicating that from late August through to early October the US and
Australian governments were aware of information from key al-Qaeda
operatives linked to JI indicating the group was planning attacks on
Western targets.
Attention is currently focused on the al-Qaeda figure Omar al-Faruq,
who is in US custody and has been interviewed by Indonesian authorities
since the bombings. Recent questioning of al-Faruq by Indonesian
authorities led to the arrest of Abu Bakar, whom he allegedly claimed was
linked to several church bombings in Indonesia.
In late August or early September, al-Faruq allegedly revealed plots to
attack US and Western targets in South-East Asia. This led the US to close
its embassies in South-East Asia on the eve of the September 11
anniversary; Australia shut its East Timor mission.
It is highly likely the confession would have prompted Australian
intelligence to monitor his key associates if it was not already doing
so.
Summaries of Indonesian and Western intelligence agency reports made
available to the Herald claim al-Faruq was identified in May as
al-Qaeda's senior representative in South-East Asia. The disclosure came
in an interrogation of a senior al-Qaeda figure by US intelligence at
Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
Al-Faruq's mobile phone number also was found in the possession of a
key JI bomb-maker who was arrested in the Philippines on explosives
charges.
The Indonesian summary said al-Faruq tried to obtain three tonnes of
ammonium nitrate explosive to use on US navy ships in May during a naval
exercise in Surabaya. Explosives were also allegedly obtained from a
former Indonesian army officer.
