Asia warned on new terror threat

Leaders are looking at how to strengthen co-operation

New terrorist attacks on the Asia-Pacific region are "inevitable", an anti-terrorism meeting has been told.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant group had been weakened by a string of arrests, but not disabled.

"Key operatives are still at large," he told ministers from Asia, Europe and the US attending the Bali meeting, co-hosted by Australia and Indonesia.

The two countries announced further measures to combat the threat.

Mr Downer said militants were training and recruiting in the region, using "legitimate fronts to pursue barbaric ends".

"We have disrupted the Jemaah Islamiah network through the capture and detention of well over 200 members, but we have not disabled it," he said.

The comments echoes those of a report issued on Tuesday by the International Crisis Group, which warned that JI posed a long-term security threat to Indonesia, and also warned of the risk posed by smaller, more radical breakaway groups.

Mr Downer announced the opening of a crime centre in the Indonesian capital Jakarta - run jointly by Indonesia and Australia - to offer anti-terror training and act as an information clearing house.

Terror attacks in Asia-Pacific are "inevitable", ministers were told

The two countries also signed an accord on the exchange of financial intelligence to combat money laundering.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri said greater cooperation had now become "our common duty".

She told the conference that such co-operation over the October 2002 Bali blast helped net more than 30 suspects.

"This solid coordination mechanism is necessary for only in this way would we be able to penetrate into the terrorist network and cells that are neatly, tightly and closely built," she said.

Officially this is a regional conference but the list of delegates is distinctly international in flavour, says the BBC's Rachel Harvey.

Ministers from at least 16 Asian states have been joined by representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

Mr Ashcroft said the US was "working towards" granting foreign investigators access to Riduan Isamuddin, accused of being JI's operations chief and better known as Hambali.

Hambali, an Indonesian citizen, has been detained by the US in an undisclosed location since his arrest in 2003.

This has prompted complaints from Indonesia that their own investigations - into the 2002 Bali bombings, among others - were being compromised.